Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"You know, I think many people would say 'yes' but actually the statistics say 'no.' If you look at how much energy in our country each person uses, that number has not changed in the last 35 years, despite the fact that we are using more electronics, computers, gadgets, cell phones, etc. And the reason is we have become much more efficient users of energy. Let me give you one statistic. In 1970 the average car was driven 10,000 miles each year, and that used 737 gallons of gasoline. Today the average car is driven over 12,000 miles a year but uses only 554 gallons of gas during that time period. And you find the same thing with most household appliances. So we're actually getting more out of each unit of energy that we use. And I think this is where many economists say we have to go in the future. If we don't see some special new form of energy that's going to cause us to reduce our use of oil, etc., the only way we're going to accommodate more total energy use is by becoming more energy efficient. But the good news is that is exactly what we've been doing."