Letter: Era of gasoline guzzling is over

Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2005 | 10 a.m.

Somehow, someway, the American people must face the reality that the day of unlimited, cheap consumption of a finite energy source is over. This realization, if it ever comes, will mean the demise of all passenger vehicles with more than four cylinders. This does not mean the end of SUVs and other gas guzzlers -- it just means they will have to be built with no more than four cylinders.

It will also mean the re-emergence of public transportation as a primary means of travel for most people as reserves of fossil fuels continue to dwindle in spite of conservation and attempts at providing alternative sources in sufficient volume.

If mass transportation is not made a priority, it will also mean, eventually, that price controls and rationing (if my four-cylinder proposal is not adopted, and, really, I don't have much faith that it will be) will have to be imposed or the economy will be seriously damaged. In other words, life as we've come to know it cannot and will not go on much longer.

If the country had listened to President Jimmy Carter in 1979 maybe it could have been delayed for awhile longer, but nobody listened.

DANIEL OLIVIER Bullhead City, Ariz.