The technology problem was solved in the 80’s when fuel injection became standard and we accepted to drive cars with smaller engines. My ‘95 Corolla still gets 30mpg. The problem is people like to drive big cars with huge engines that obviously use more fuel, simple physics here. It’s their choice and last time I checked this is a free country and if it floats your boat to drive and SUV then by all means do it. Just don’t come complaining that you can’t afford to drive it because it eats gasoline.

Global Warming and Al Gore are trivial at best with Al Gore just being a well paid person that morons with no understanding of Environmental Science will listen too.
The liberal media is responsible for a lot of the false reports on Global Warming. From my own research we’ve found that the climate is actually cooling slowly, but that’s not what people want to hear. There was a international scientific convention in NYC a month ago about how our data is innacurate and that the Earth goes through natural cyclic climate changes and has been doing it since the formation of our solar system, long before humans began burning fossil fuels. Our data is insufficient and we have not been able to prove that climate change is caused by anthropogenic sources. Al Gore like to show you the data plotted on a huge graph but shrinks the horizontal scale and elongates the vertical scale to exacerbate the rise in temperature.
If you’ve ever taken a statistics course one of the first rules is correlation does not equal causation. You make statistics show just about anything in your favor. Believe me, I’m about to get a degree in Environmental Economics. Hybrid cars won’t save you any money if you have to drive at 65mph to commute to work, you’re just using the smaller gasoline engine to lug the weight of batteries and an electric motor. It will only save you money if your commute is short and you drive at in-town speeds of less than 35mph; which is pointless because you could probably commute more efficiently by public transportation or riding a bicycle.

Economics teaches that more disposable income to consumers is better than less income. I prefer more utility over less, paying taxes has never made me feel better about myself or trust the government anymore than I already don’t. The gas tax may not be all that much but it’s something and to some people that can make a difference. Let’s face it politicians are always trying to deceive people into voting for them, more votes keeps them in power, they like that. The majority of the voters have very little in the way of political science or economics backgrounds and they will vote for whomever they believe will make their lives easier. Key word and phrase here are “believe” and “make life easier.” Life is never easy and believing is dreaming which isn’t very productive.

If you want to save some extra gas money for the summer, sell the SUV, get a decent road bicycle, learn to live a little, use the bike to commute to work if it’s not too far which will get you in shape. If you have to drive, get a used manual transmission small sedan. You won’t have to fill up the tank as often. Part of becoming more efficient is learning to live without unnecessary conveniences.