Peter's Viewpoint

Everyone knew that energy conservation was an idea started from the 70's when the oil industry started to use it's power as a monopoly with one of the world's natural resources that affected industrial growth.

These days we are reminded of that by the extremely right capitalistic pricing that raised oil prices to the $150 per barrel mark.

Isn't it amazing how after so many years we have to be reminded in the same disturbing way that we not enough research into other energy sources should have become a priority.  So why is that?  The answer is simply that the oil industry has a stranglehold on governments and this must be stopped.

While discussing this issue with other peers, one viable answer is that a price be set for oil that will allow it to be fair but at the same time be high enough to force everyone to use this resource in moderation.

On the business side, we have seen cyclical patterns of new ventures come and go and it appears that energy efficiency will be no exception.  As a by-product of the competition that will follow, hopefully the western nations will learn to conserve energy even though they maybe instilled with the idea that new energy sources means wasting is not only possible but good.

This planet called Earth has it's limitatons for every resource that we use.

When things get tough in Europe, the tough consider a new approach, the possibility of separation of states.

Europe has been divided industrially and economically as the USA was during the civil war era.  These days just when the results of improvement in the southern areas of Europe are more evident, the effects of the economic crisis produced faster results of decline then is obvious in the more afluent northern countries.  This displays how important it is for a country to have funding just as it is for individuals to have a healthy bank account for hard times.

At one time or another, Europeans knowing the above have considered having a northern and southern separation but never did with the thought of having one united states of Europe.  Until recently no member state would even consider the idea that once a member was instated, that there was no thought of being expelled.  Now again it appears that the European Parliament is returning to the "only the strong will survive" and as such the less fortunate member states may find themselves creating a secondary EU union of the south. 

Maybe we'll all get to see a newer production of "Gone with the wind" soon.