last letter on this for a while. I gotta go:

Good God man! Zakaria makes some decent observations, but can anyone show me when an increase in efficiency did not lead to increased consumption? If there is one thing we’ve seen repeated over and over since the 1970’s its that when cars become more fuel efficient people start driving a lot more than they ever did before, and in the end they use more fuel than they did with the inefficient cars.
Now perhaps you can make the case that efficiency has kept prices down over
the years, and more efficiency might do the same. But making it more
accessible doesn’t bring down consumption.
In his penultimate paragraph, Zakaria argues that the way to drop the price
of oil by $20 a barrel is to tag on substantial taxes to raise the price at
the pump. That would drop demand all right (never mind what the taxes would
do), but once his new fuel efficient cars get on track the increased
consumption should push prices back up again…wait, what is Zakaria arguing
for again?