Pete, put a battery and a electric motor on the bike, and you can ride to work without breaking a sweat. Might be hard to get the air conditioner to run on the battery tough.. Upside is that electric motors dont make any noise. We have some electric cars over here, and they are eerie when they pass you without a sound (and a bit dangerous if you rely on hearing when crossing a road)!

http://www.think.no/


Norway is a net exporter of oil and gas, but even we fear what the middle east regimes might do. We do not have the refinery capacity to produce for our own needs, so if OPEC stopped pumping things would grind to a halt here as well.
Bush is an oil man, bought all the way to the white house (I know this is rude, but it's how he is percieved by me and many others here). He would be very carful not to do any harm to his sponsors and friends in the oil business.

You are probably right in that we will be harshly judged by our grandchildren. Making shopping bags and other things we just throw away is wasteful when we could as easily use recycable materials instead. Some of the worst waste I see is the flame towers at oilfields. They burn off gas coming out of the underground reservoars in such huge quantities that you could probably supply New York with all the energy they need just from what we norwegians burn in the north sea. Taking it on-shore and using it to produce electricity and heating is a big political no-no becouse it would go on our Kyoto quota. Talk about double morals..

I must sound like a tree hugger, but I believe we will see the end of the "oil-age' in our time (I am 35), and possibly witness whatever comes after it.