What is a consequence of sky high energy prices

While I have lived overseas and been cold or chilled in the winter because heat is so scarce, I still wonder about our Country. Other people know what we are learning, that energy is expensive. Even taking a super highway from A to B often incurs a toll, on top of the $5 plus (and rising) dollar a gallon gas bill. Many of us would kindly say we can think about this.

Some of us also think about our fellow citizens who have to balance a budget to survive, as in “balance a budget”. For years we have heard about turning down the thermostat and putting on more clothes and insulating the house. But when all this has been done, and the price of energy goes up, then the law of diminishing returns kicks in. We can only turn down the thermostat so far before we begin to die from the cold.

So for all the idealists and academics who say the more energy costs, the more we will conserve, please go to the funerals.