Some time in the late '90s I drove through that spit of Canada between Michigan and Niagra Falls. Gasoline was advertised there at 80 cents per liter, which works out to a little over three dollars (Canadian) per gallon. I knew at the time that we paid very little for gasoline, compared to the rest of the world, but this was the first time I came face to face with the issue. I thought then, as I still do, that here in the US we should be paying prices on par with the rest of the world.
I realize that this is something of a self-defeating position. I enjoy driving, and I do a fair bit of it - gasoline forms a very real part of my expenses - and I don't have money to spare. But I also realize that it is because of the low price of gasoline that Americans neither invest much in public transit, nor use it. I think that the availability of gasoline has also fed into the American notion that driving is a God-given right, rather than a privilege to be granted only to those who can show adequate mastery of the necessary skills.
I am not the first to point out that our nation's dependence on oil, including foreign oil, has created real international and political problems for us. I doubt that I'm the first to propose that the low price of gasoline has reinforced that dependence by encouraging oil use and discouraging investigation and investment in alternative energy sources.
If I lived in a warmer climate, I'd probably use used vegetable oil for fuel; it's just too cold here during the winter, and I can't afford to keep two vehicles.
Since oil is an exhaustable resource, we do need to develop alternate energy sources. Unfortunately, we don't tend to invest in the future - we defer maintenance on our bridges, and prefer to treat the uninsured in the ER rather than provide them with insurance. We also seem to be devoid of a sense of personal responsibility ("Yes, I realize that my client was hypertensive, obese, had coronary artery disease and a family history of cardiac disease, and had spent the morning shoveling snow (that well-known trigger of heart attack), but it was the Vioxx that caused his heart attack.") So we need some sort of a kick to get us to act. I've long thought that high gasoline prices would provide that kick, though three dollars per gallon doesn't seem to have done very much. Maybe we need to wait for regular to go to $6.59 per gallon.
We probably won't be waiting very long.
1 comment:
When we were in Japan, gas cost something like ten dollars a gallon. Everybody knows their cars are smaller, but the Hondas and Toyotas they send to America don't begin to give you the idea. There are whole phyla of Japanese cars that could fit in a Hummer's glove compartment. The air quality there isn't wonderful, but it's much better than it could be given their population density. They're dead serious about their mass transit, and everyone rides bikes, even in the big cities. Most businesses have bike parking out front, and commercial areas usually have a big municipal bike parking lot, or many such, with security guards. Not too many morbidly obese people in Japan.
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