The benefits and costs of a product may be measured along many different dimensions. As with most choices people face, the decision to improve an automobile involves trade-offs. Have the students identify as many trade-offs as they can that result from mandating better fuel economy in automobiles. We know that, other things being equal, consumers prefer a car that uses less gasoline. The campaign to impose stricter energy efficiency standards persists for reasons which have little to do with the facts concerning energy reserves, global warming, or the effectiveness of efficiency regulations.
Energy is more plentiful than ever in human history.
The existence and effects of global warming are debatable and likely to be unavoidable if they are indeed real. Further, energy efficiency legislation has failed to reduce energy use. One answer is that thousand of bureaucrats and activists earn their livelihoods by perpetuating the sense of a crisis that requires management by government. As more and more economic decisions are regulated, deflected, or distorted by governments, liberty and the dynamic market process it engenders are weakened. But the invisible hand of the market is the only really successful means humanity has discovered for dealing with the problem of scarcity in a peaceful, cooperative manner.