oil in walden

I'm in Walden, a little town about 60 miles east of Steamboat Springs, doing some work. I do land contracts and ownership research for the oil and gas business, an important irony given what I just read.
Back up. I'm in Walden, a town of about 1,000 people. I got shut out of the courthouse because they close for lunch. This is Small Town America's version of the Spanish siesta, a vestige of times long forgotten. Rainy and cold, this was no afternoon for a rest on a park bench until the Treasurer came back from her Reuben. I shuffled back to my Subaru, beautiful rusting Abby, and fired up the computer to look at some files. What pops up, but a wireless signal! In Walden, of all places.
So here I am, wildly distracted from the lease files I was going to review. The New York Times led with an article about oil futures flirting with $140 a barrel, and my reaction of "good" comes with two motivations. First, I work in the oil and gas business. Work is plentiful and I'm fairly compensated. But on a deeper note, and here is where things get more complicated for me, I really wish people would drive their cars less, buy smaller homes, manage their energy demands, and live lives less connected with machines connected to power outlets. I'm as guilty as anyone. How else can I write this blog, save with a computer and its "sinister" power cable?
But as crude prices rocket towards the stratosphere, we are quickly going to be faced with a difficult reality. We can't continue to believe that energy is cheap, and we will need to treat it accordingly. When gasoline is $5 a gallon as it will surely be in the next two years, we are going to ride the bus. When our electricity bill triples because Congress finally enacts a carbon tax on coal, we are going to turn off the goddamn lights. (Unrelated to crude prices, I know, but I was striding towards a blanket energy tangent) When diesel is $6 a gallon, our food might be expensive enough for all of us to take those outrageous quarter acre lots and grow a garden.
The point is, energy is the hub of the entire economy. And the more expensive our current forms of it are, the sooner we are going to have to rethink the way we do business. Starting with this blog. Power off, saving juice.