Replies to post #4617 on The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[DewDiligence]

From the same NYT article:

More recently, with gasoline prices rising and another election looming, Mr. Obama has…signaled a willingness to eventually approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada, trumpeted increases in oil and gas production and de-emphasized the challenges of climate change.

When did Obama signal a willingness to eventually approve Keystone? I must have missed it.

[DewDiligence]

Also from the same article:

S.U.V.’s accounted for 18 percent of [US] new-car sales in 2002, but only 7 percent in 2010.

SUV’s comprise a much higher proportion of vehicles in my neck of the woods (Wellesley, MA) than what would be implied by the above figures. The difference is so great that I find the above figures a little hard to believe.

[OakesCS]

the US is very unlikely to achieve energy independence. The writer of the NYT fluff piece uses the phrase "greater energy independence". One thing obama got kind of right yesterday was that the US has a very small percentage of the world's proven reserves. Having Mexico and Canada gets north america closer to 25% of the world's proven reserves and fortunately for the US both countries have relatively small populations (not so we can annex them ;^))

the 2nd half of this sentence is a joke:

How the country made this turnabout is a story of industry-friendly policies started by President Bush and largely continued by President Obama