Actually, the rising prices are what will bring about the radical changes that are needed in energy, transportation, metropolitan planning. It will be costly and painful at first, but I think history is pretty clear that we won't act until it's absolutely necessary. Quite a bit was accomplished during the 1970s and early 1980s in terms of making the US economy less energy-intensive and less dependent on imported oil, but progress stopped after the price of oil crashed in the mid-1980s.