Research results for short-term and long-term petroleum elasticities are summarized, and existing Energy Information Administration (EIA) models of energy demand are used to develop estimates of price response for 1-, 3-, 5-, and 10-year intervals. In the short-run, elasticities reported for most petroleum products in most end-uses generally range from -.1 to -.4 although the numerous research estimates for gasoline demand elasticity are clustered in the more elastic range of -.1 to -.3. EIA models used in this analysis fall within these ranges and tend toward the higher (in absolute terms) end of the elasticity range. In transportation uses, for which most of the research has centered on gasoline, petroleum demand has been shown to be less responsive to price than the other sectors, with long-term gasoline estimates generally falling in the range of -.3 to -.9. In investigating the price sensitivity for periods up to 10 years using the EIA Demand Analysis System, petroleum product elasticities in all sectors are typically between -.4 and -.1. For automobile gasoline demand, the greatest proportion of the 10-year price response is manifested in increased cutbacks in travel. The model studies show that, given continued increases in the price of oil, the proportion of consumer budgets as well as industrial production costs allocated for petroleum products will increase; that petroleum prices will be volatile in instances of temporary oil shortages; and that market forces can achieve long-term conservation of petroleum, but at the cost of greater proportional increases in oil prices.

Although present day politics seems to be preoccupied with questions of economic growth and full employment, the basic environmental problems stemming from the interactions of the economic sphere with global, regional and local environments persist and will have an even greater impact in the future. If economy and ecology are not reconciled in the years to come, mankind will not have a sustainable future on Earth. The typical negation of environmental problems in times of economic crisis is partially due to the fact that environmental and health damages of economic activities are neither priced nor included in our market price system. This allows politicians to focus their attention on insufficient economic indicators which do not reflect the actual development of the welfare of society. If economic lead indicators like GDP or balance of trade figures were better integrated with information on the environmental and health costs caused by the seemingly beneficial economic development, politicians might have better guidance as to what policy choices would benefit society most.