Thanks for the responses everyone. I'm going to have to study a couple of these. I think Jane knows this, but did not specifically state it: a lot of fertizer is made from petroleum. I've read that the green revolution that allows 6.5 billion of us to not starve (if it was distributed more evenly) is rather dependent on chemical fertilizer. Hence, with petroleum expensive, and eventually (soon) global supplies falling (peak oil), this will become a problem...must already be a problem for countries that use chemical fertilizer that are not rich (I'm guessing that the poorest countries, like sub-saharan Africa, never did us much chemical fertilizer). Perhaps Jane will want to comment on how dependent American (and global) agriculture is on chemical fertilizer.
Hey, I just spent $3.05/gallon for gas this morning. I think that is a record. The same station had same gas for $1.99 last fall. For various reasons I think that high gasoline prices are a good thing...although there certainly are downsides...I just believe that high gas prices are required to make a bunch of other things happen, and are the lesser evil...
Chris