With the price of oil dropping so far so fast, gasoline may soon return to the $2.00 per gallon level. This could be a great short-term boost for the economy, since the cost of fuel affects the cost of nearly everything else we buy or sell.

But lower gasoline prices may come at a very steep price to our future, because the economics driving innovation in alternative energy just turned upside down.

As long as the price of oil was streaking upwards toward $200 per barrel, investors were pouring money into wind, solar, biofuel, electric cars, and the infrastructure to support a paradigm shift in energy production and consumption. Now investment has slowed because of the market’s legendary short sightedness. And I don’t just mean the stock market.

If gasoline settles at the two-dollar level for a while, how will we behave? Will SUV sales increase again? Will people drive more just because it is cheaper?  Will we waste resources simply because we can afford to do so? Or will we have learned something from the economic turmoil of the last two years?

I generally skirt politics in my writing, but I cannot avoid it now. If the Republican Party finds itself marginalized in the next administration, I hope members will take advantage of their time in the wilderness to rediscover the party’s ethical roots. Conservatives should stand for frugality and yes: conservation. Instead, Republicans have somehow devolved into a party of hedonism – the party party, if you will. From environmental indifference to the pillaging of the treasury to the deregulatory party favors delivered to the revelers on Wall Street, Republicans have acted more like a billionaire boys’ club than the cloth coat conservatives who made the Grand Old Party grand.

I’m a dyed in the wool capitalist, but I accept that the market doesn’t do what is right, only what is profitable. Capitalism describes base human behavior, not our higher aspirations. The market has no moral code. The market has no country. The market does not care about the quality of our air and water, or the security consequences of our dependency on foreign oil. Do you care about these things? Then please remember: we are the market, we are the government, and we are the ultimate decision makers. Next Tuesday we’ll vote with our ballots, but we vote everyday with our wallets and our choices.

A long-term energy independence policy isn’t going to come from Washington or Wall Street or the Straits of Hormuz. Rather, a sensible energy policy will come from we the people conserving energy, investing in alternative energy, and speaking up to demand participation from our representatives.  If we turn away from alternative energy because of a temporary drop in oil prices, we’ll be that much farther behind when the next crisis hits. If the Republican Party wants to be grand again, we need to remember that conservatism means governance of our baser desires, not capitulation to them.