As the drilling of natural gas continues, we remain collectively unable to address the reality underlying the discussion. In a Jan. 12 U.S. Department of Energy study, the available reserves of the Marcellus Shale formation were reduced from 17 to six years’ worth.

If what we consider our future— of jobs, energy, investment, of anything — to be six years, we suffer from a deeply short-sighted imagination and an even more deeply ingrained cynicism.

The elephant in the room in all of this energy talk is the only inexpensive and lasting solution: conservation. Americans consume twice as much energy per capita (8,000 kg a year) as even the most consumptive other first-world countries.

Conservation takes care of everything at once, and by its very nature is cheaper than any expensive industrial solution that uses elaborate amounts of energy as it goes about extracting more. We can either choose to live with less now or go on burning what there is until less is all we have.

Conservation takes the issue of our energy future out of the hands of bureaucrats, in government and industry, and puts it in our own responsible hands. We share a roughly 50-50 split with industry for energy consumption, so in this arena, it’s a responsibility we already have.

Let’s not be at the mercy of the industry or the government to give us six years of jobs and gas only to leave us demanding recompense when they leave. Conservation is the only way to choose an active and responsible future.

Kevin Sims Millheim