The Price of Gasoline
I’m going to write some things here that may sound unpleasant, but they just may be what we need to consider. Gasoline is still way too cheap.
At present we are paying more than ever before in the US, and yet that is barely half of what it costs in England and much of Europe.
The sad fact seems to be that we will never rethink our energy policies fundamentally until we are truly hurting, and we’re not truly hurting yet. So we take corn stocks, which could be used for food, and turn them into ethanol for our cars, and wonder why there are food riots and starvation in countries that can no longer afford to buy our now scarce grains. We don’t see or feel this directly. All we feel is a few dollars lighter. We aren’t going without our meals so it doesn’t really hurt us, yet.
If we were to raise the price of gasoline to reflect the true cost suffered by those in Nigeria, say, who see the pipelines for oil being constructed to fill the tankers, but who daily become poorer in a daily more degraded environment in which they cannot afford to buy the gasoline they see pumped to the waiting ships - - then we’d have to factor in what it would take to feed them properly. But no one has done that for thirty years.
If gas were to be paid for at something approaching its true price we’d scramble to find alternate, renewable energy. We wouldn’t grasp at short term solutions such as McCain has suggested when he has stood behind coal power. Sure it’s cheap now but it’s not good news if in a few years (when it runs out) you want a decent earth or less global warming. Oh, and if you like breathing right now it’s a poor idea too.
Yet our athletes will go to the Olympics and compete in one of the foulest public airspaces available on this planet, Beijing, and no one seems to have noticed one can’t see from one end of the stadium to the other because of industrial and vehicle-produced air pollution, or that the lakes for the sailing competitions are filled with algae that thrives on (oil-based) pollutants, rendering the waterways unusable. Why are we failing to acknowledge what’s in front of our noses?
Things may have to get nastier before they can get better.
on July 8th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Here here! I look forward to the cost of gas doubling or more, and I hope it pushes us to be more creative in our thinking and to choose energy sources that are sustainable and do not make us reliant on other countries.
To be fair, though, the hike in gas prices does disproportionally hurt the lower income who often cannot afford to buy newer, cleaner running vehicle and may not have an option to live near public transportation. I’m not sure there’s an easy solution. I think the far reaching benefits will out weigh the short term pain but it does irk me that the folks with the most disposable income are least effected by their SUV driving.
That said, I have given up flipping off the hummers I pass on the street (the very few left) and have taken to laughing at them. I hope they wince with each $100 tank of gas they put in their vehicle.
on July 9th, 2008 at 1:28 am
Thank you for your vote of support, Marnie, and for your excellent insights into those who will be most hurt in the short term. It’s always the less advantaged who suffer first, isn’t it? Mind you, I thoroughly agree with a bit of sarcasm, contempt and scorn poured onto those still using Hummers and so on. Perhaps it’s the only way to get them to wake up? Or has money insulated them so much they’re beyond waking?
Strangely enough I just watched the BBC America news tonight in which they covered the G8 summit that has agreed to limit greenhouse emissions by 2050, and in the next segment they showed the air pollution in Beijing, which is on two or more occasions each week as much as 7 times the limit suggested by the World Health Organization. And this is after the Chinese have temporarily shut down local factories and moved others in a desperate attempt to meet pollution levels for the Olympics. We may not have until 2050 before we need to address this problem….
As ever, Allan
on July 9th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
In 1976, I helped edit “It’s in Your Power” by Stuart Diamond and Paul Lorris, a book filled with practical tips for reducing energy use.
At that time, I learned how Firestone, Ford, and Standard Oil cooperatively dismantled existing public transportation to create the need for their tires, cars and oil.
By diverting federal subsidies away from public transport and into roads and highways, they promoted the private automobile as the symbol of personal freedom.
Our national conversion built their corporations.
What’s at stake now is for people to understand how they bought into this dream . They discounted the trade-off. Senators, governors and mayors, all keepers of the public trust, bought the dream, too.
To solve our energy problems, we must undo an elaborate uncoscious belief system which places us on the yellow brick road with Dorothy just before she met up with the Wizard.
MLou
on July 9th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Dear Mary Lou,
Fascinating - and chilling! I had no idea that the interference was so direct! But it makes sense that this should have been the case.
It reminds me of Juliet Schorr’s statements about US education: she asserts that in real terms US grade school education has been consistently underfunded by every administration since 1945. No wonder we have citizens who can’t think (and who therefore can’t always vote sensibly when they reach the appropriate age). Instead we have good consumers, who believe what the advertisers tell them…
Plenty of work ahead for us all, I think.
Allan