May
2
$5 Gas? We Asked For It.
May 2, 2008 | 1 Comment
Back when I was a kid, I read in a school textbook that we only had about 20 years more of oil. They where wrong. But at the same time, they pointed out one fact: Oil was getting scarcer, and scarce things tend to cost more — especially if people start using more of them.
We should open our history books and remember a few decisions we have taken, consciously, that have increased the likelihood of an oil price increase:
- SUVs – Nuff Said.
- Cozy Homes – The other day a bunch of people looked funny when I was telling them about how cold are the nights in Bogota, Colombia. They thought that everyone in the world had a heating system that kept their homes at a confy 72F degrees. No, this is not the case. Most areas in the world where the temperature do not fall below freezing do not have a heating system. You just use more blankets! Turn the thermostat down! [to 65F]– Jimmy Carter (BTW, Sweaters and Jackets can look nice.)
- Nuclear Plants – We haven’t built ‘em. In 1979 people got scared with the Three Mile Island incident. France has most of their power from them (those green, tree huggers know exactly how to produce green energy – they even make tons of Euros out of it).
- Artic Refuge Drilling – We haven’t done it. Clinton Vetoed. Bush couldn’t get Congress to pass anything he said (independent of the validity of it).
- E85 – Why don’t we have a tax credit for people buying flexible fuel vehicles? We had it for hybrids. BTW, why don’t we expand the one on hybrids as well – maybe increase it only for U.S. produced hybrids so that we can help the auto workers at the same time and please both parties.
- Stop Buying Trinkets – Every time you buy a trinket from China (or other country), you send money overseas. The trade balance gets against us — more dollars in circulation than the world needs — lowering our currency and increasing the price of oil.
Who knows what the future will hold? But following the1973 and 1979 oil crisis, we got the 1980’s Oil Glut – incredibly low prices that got ourselves comfortably seated in greenhouse gas emitting SUVs. Maybe the same thing will happen in a few years. Not counting on it, yet.
(Weblog originally posted on the Anes Weblog. Also related to the post: I Want Expensive Gas.)
Related Posts:
Comments
1 Comment so far
Subscribe
Everyone is complaining about high gas prices but nobody is slowing down on the freeway. I slowed down to the speed limit and am getting 2-3 more miles a gallon. I have an 18 gallon tank which means I get 38 to 54 more miles out of my tank. Thats approximatley 1 to 2 gallons of savings on a tank. I wonder what would happen to gas reserves if everyone in the US slowed down and saved gas buy getting better mileage from their tanks. I wish some brain who works with numbers would figure that one out. We only have ourselfs to blame for high gas prices. We purchased these big gas guzzlers over the last two decades without considering the consequences. As REV. Wright says “The chickens have come home to roost”. I have heard people talking about not purchasing gas on a paticular day to get the prices to come down. It won’t work because we will need to get gas at some time and if we don’t conserve by getting more miles from a tank it won’t make a bit of difference when you get your gas.
Don’t blame the oil companies they were only doing their job supplying us with all the gas we wanted.