Fuel for pessimism

Re “What if oil hits $200?” June 28

The Times’ front-page article is a first step in helping the public talk about $200 a barrel oil. The second step is for the media and the public to say the words “when oil hits $200 a barrel.”

Oil will hit $200, and rather soon. With the dramatic increase in demand for oil in China and India, there is no other possibility that makes sense. And when oil hits $200, The Times may be the first to cautiously introduce the idea on its front page, “What if oil hits $300?”

Dwain Deets

Leucadia, Calif.

While we all attempt to adjust to rapidly rising oil and gasoline prices, your “what happens if” article only adds to public shock, implying that an even higher price is coming soon.

The public would be better informed that future energy price increases are real because global energy demand is rising. And although the article presents a sprinkling of facts and economic opinions, almost nothing is concluded but that things will get worse and that a few budget adjustments are required.

The public deserves better analyses, especially now that forest fires, floods, droughts and rising temperatures are the current “what if” indications of global warming. These are the real topics that we have to consider, especially before national elections that will steer our future economy and welfare.

Thomas J. Wright

Huntington Beach

I find it interesting that no one has yet mentioned the lines from the movie “Three Days of the Condor,” when J. Higgins asks Joe Turner (and I paraphrase): “What do you think the people are going to want us to do then? ... Ask them when they’re running out. Ask them when there’s no heat and they’re cold. Ask them when their engines stop. Ask them when people who have never known hunger start going hungry.”

Rather ironic that people thought the subject matter of an anti-establishment, anti-CIA film made in 1975 was farfetched fiction.

Peter N. Karp

La Costa