This column begins a new feature for this blog.  Every week, for the near future, I plan to have an interview with a well respected scientist or thinker on the subject of energy.  Regular readers of this blog know that I believe that facing and solving the multiple issues concerning energy is the single most pressing problem that we face as a species.  There is a lot of media coverage about energy, alternative energy and global warming, but what has been missing is the knowledge and point of view of scientists, at least in the main stream media.  What do the best and brightest think about energy and the future?  Please continue to come to www.evolutionshift.com and find out.

This series is launched with an interview with Dennis M. Bushnell.  Dennis is Chief Scientist, NASA, Langley Research Center.  I had the good fortune to meet and listen to Dennis at the recent Energy conference hosted by the Foundation for the Future.  Then, and here, Dennis has clear, firm and well researched positions on energy.  Enjoy.

1. Evolutionshift.com:  Thank you for this interview.  Dennis, your title is ” Chief Scientist, NASA, Langley Research Center”  That sounds impressive.  What is it that you do in general, and how much of your job relates to energy issues?

 Bushnell: In General - Technical oversight and advanced program formulation of/for the NASA Langley Research Center, which conducts research in the areas of Aeronautics, Earth and Planetary Atmospheric Science and Space Exploration.  Energy-related tasks include Aircraft Emissions reduction, …

Recent events and news stories have had a familiar feel to me.  It is because many of them had been part of my predictions for 2007 that I published here in January.  When something I can see happening in the future actually happens, in a way it has already occurred for me.  For example, I have been on the record, and telling anyone that asks since January that not only would gasoline climb over $3 a gallon this year, it would also set the all time record, set in 1981 of $3.11 in inflation adjusted dollars, and that is many cities the price would climb over $4 a gallon.  Well all that just happened.

This and other recent stories made me want to go back and publicly take a look at the 11 specific predictions I made the first week of January.   I will just quote the first part of the prediction, since the full language can be read here.

2007 Predictions

The ‘middle’ will reassert itself, politically and economically.  Clearly this is happening in Washington D.C. where a consensus move to the center is occurring, in large part due to the Democratically controlled Congress.  Also, last month while the discount chains such as Wal-Mart were announcing discouraging earning reports and predictions, department stores, the middle of the market reported revenue and earning upticks.
The U.S. residential real estate market will essentially go sideways for the entire year.   Well, year to date that is certainly true. There will not …

It was reported yesterday that Americans are driving less, in large part due to the high price of gasoline. For the first time since 1981 the average American motorist is driving less. After 25 years of steady increases, the growth in total miles driven has leveled off in the last 18 months. This is in spite of the fact that there have been an additional 1 million drivers on the highways since 2005. While the population and workforce of the country has expanded by more than 1 percent, the total amount of driving has increased only 0.3 percent.

The interesting correlation between today and 1981 is that it was in that year that the price of gasoline reached its highest price when adjusted for inflation. The price reached an inflation adjusted price of $3.22 in 2007 dollars. That compares to the $3.11 national average price of yesterday. As regular readers of this column know, in January, I predicted record gasoline prices this year, so today’s high prices are no surprise. There is no doubt in my mind that between now and Labor Day, we will see prices continue to go up, mostly likely exceeding a $3.50 per gallon national average.

There are other reasons that Americans are driving less. The Federal Highway Administration says that 7 in 10 Americans now say they are combining trips and taking other steps to cut down on driving. In 2006 more people took public transportation than …

Last week it was reported that the ratings board of the motion picture industry is now going to factor in cigarette smoking as part of the overall rating of a film.  Films with excessive smoking will now certainly get a PG-13, if not an R rating.  The goal is to cut down on the influence on teen smoking behavior.  There is clear correlation between the glamorization of cigarette smoking on screen and people smoking.

While this development is certainly to be applauded from a public health point of view, it does seem to be off the mark if the goal is to lessen unhealthy behavior in young Americans. Excessive drinking, use of guns, corporate theft and deceit, physical and sexual violence are also bad for this country’s health and they are also widely depicted on the big screen.  It is absurd to think that a scene depicting gun violence or a robbery might get a less restrictive rating if the actors are not smoking. There is no need for me to dwell on this aspect of the topic, as Marshall Herskovitz, the accomplished Hollywood producer, has written a great piece on this development.

This news story did get me to thinking about cigarette smoking, but from a more historical point of view. It could be argued that, in the United States, cigarette smoking is a habit largely contained in a single century.  At the beginning of the 20th century, cigarette smoking was not widespread.  In the middle of the century it …