Oil and more oil

Today's NYTimes talks about China's alarming and growing dependency on oil, NJ's crumbling transportation infrastructure and its inability to fund future repairs, and increasing oil prices against complacent consumer behavior. The sentence that stays with me is from one of the interviewees who drives an SUV:

"That's like having an obesity problem," he said, "and being told you need a smaller shirt."

This is the counterpoint to the oft-used analogy about widening roads, likening adding another lane to getting bigger pants as a means to solve a person's obesity problem.

Obesity isn't necessarily an inept analogy - afterall, the U.S. transportation infrastructure and policies are a true reflection of our habits as consumers both in our demand for it and our inability to fund it. But as any seasoned public health official can tell you, consumer behavior is one of the most difficult things to change. Uh-oh.