Until 1973 the extraction, refinement and production of oil was a business pretty much controlled by the major oil companies, with some help from the independents. In that year the group of nations known as the Oil Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC) seized control of the pricing and production levels through the first oil embargo, precipitated by the Yom Kippur war between Israel and Egypt. That began a decade of elevated energy prices and variable supply that was a wild ride for the entire industrialised world.

At the time elite opinion, unable to resist the allure of an issue that could shift control to itself, characterised this state of affairs as an "energy crisis." We were told that we were running out of oil. We were also told that this was just as well, that the pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels endangered life on earth. At the other end of society the rest of us, faced with gross energy inefficiencies that were proving expensive to fund, were scrambling to reduce our costs by implementing energy efficient technologies--both simple and exotic--to continue our operations.

The result of all of this was that, in the late 1970's and early 1980's, energy consumption actually fell in the U.S. This, coupled with some changes in the way oil was sold, broke the pricing cartel OPEC had created and helped to fuel (sorry!) the economic renaissance of the U.S. that started in the 1980's.

Now we are told that we have two choices. We can go on another enforced energy conservation programme (as envisioned by the Kyoto Treaty) to save our environment, or we can go on with non-stop economic growth with cheap energy as we have been doing during the 1980's and 1990's.

As was the case in the 1970's, though, things are not as simple as they are presented. Or are they? The obvious solution to this problem is to increase the price of oil. This would do the following:

• Reduce consumption (as it did before;)
• Reduce the dependence of the U.S. at least on the careerist Middle East for oil (and thus our military commitment to the region;)
• Reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, which would do wonders for our environment;
• Encourage the development of oil production within the U.S.; and
• Do so using the free-market regimen of supply and demand.

Unfortunately this simple solution is trapped between two political extremes.

The one is environmental. Environmentalism has had as one of its prime objectives the return of our society to a more primitive state. (This is why I cannot accept the idea that liberals can be scientific.) This excludes advances in technology (why do you think they opposed nuclear energy so vociferously?) and in--horror or horrors--oil companies being able to charge more for their product.

The other is the oil companies themselves. These entities, which do serve a useful purpose in society, are organised to profit their shareholders. The more oil they sell, and the cheaper they get it out of the ground, the more profit they make.

The people who have an duty to advance a country, however, are those who lead it in its government, including elected representatives. They have the possibility of putting together an agenda for energy consumption that pulls more oil production domestically, encourages reduction in energy consumption, reduces importation of energy from unreliable sources, and through all this promote the health of the environment through the reduction of greenhouse gases. Unfortunately, any time an issue has strong opinions on both sides of the spectrum to prevent action (immigration reform has the same problem) the usual result is that nothing gets done.

Since the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003, the market has been taking care of things by raising the price for everyone. The broadening consumption of oil and the usual state of the Middle East guarantees this state of affairs for some time to come, although we need to address some other issues in the process, such as coal. Both liberals and conservatives need to stop whining about higher oil prices and understand that both of their cherished objectives--improving the environment and strengthening the U.S.--are furthered in this manner. This is one of those rare issues where we can have our cake and eat it too, if we can look at things from a broader perspective. Getting people to do that is another matter altogether.