The U.S.A. Leads the Way

The New York Times recently published an in-depth article on the current oil crisis in which they pointed out that the United States is the only industrialized country that has significantly increased its consumption of oil since the oil shocks of the 70s and 80s.

Here’s how our oil consumption since 1980 compares with a few other countries:

Denmark – down 33%
Sweden – down 32%
Germany – down 20%
Switzerland – down 18%
France – down 14%
Finland – down 14%
Italy – down 13%
Japan – up 0.2%
England – up 2%
United States – up 21%

There are several reasons for our “performance”:

> We still have some of the lowest gas prices in the world.
> We still insist on driving big cars.
> We have very low taxes on energy.
> We have the longest daily commutes, which we do by car instead of transit.

Bottom line? The U.S. accounts for about a quarter of the entire world’s daily consumption of oil and fully half of that goes into our cars and trucks.

So all together now: We’re Number One! We’re Number One!