This is belaboring the obvious, but we obviously didn’t learn the last time this happened in the ’70s. Will we learn this time? Drilling more won’t help either, as world demand for resources scream for more economical vehicle solutions.

The loss of 400,000 barrels of oil a day caused by the closure of BP’s Prudhoe Bay oilfield in Alaska could be offset if all the cars and trucks in the United States got just one extra mile per gallon of fuel efficiency, a prominent non-profit grouping of scientists said this week.

The report from the Washington, DC-based Union of Concerned Scientists also says United States drivers would spend $50 million less each day on gasoline with the modest improvement of gas mileage.

“The pipeline shutdown reminds us that we need to start kicking our oil habit,” the group’s Clean Fuels researcher David Friedman said in a statement. “Over the course of a year, that would be $18 billion that could be spent strengthening our economy and creating jobs across the country.”

I agree completely.