This is Serious

There’s a lot on the news lately about the high price of gas and the possibility that it will dump us into a Recession. It doesn’t sound too different from the over-hyped news stories of past years that we usually tuned out, as long as we were still able to fill our tanks. This time, though, it may be more than just saying “ouch” and paying a little more. This time is serious.

A long, long time ago during the 1970’s, we experienced a nationwide gasoline shortage that resulted in gas-rationing, less recreational driving, car-pooling, and a rush to buy more fuel-efficient cars, like the then new Honda. The shortage didn’t last very long, though, and we soon forgot all about it. And although gas prices continued to rise and fuel-efficient Japanese cars became decidedly less “foreign” to us, we gradually started buying bigger and bigger cars again until, today, there seem to be far more gas-guzzling SUVs than anything else on the road.

Then came 2008. While we have become accustomed to rising gas prices, which then level off for awhile as we adjust to them, no one seemed prepared for the rapid and steep increases that experts predict will continue to $6, possibly even $10 per gallon. We are finally reaching the point where gasoline will be truly unaffordable. The trouble is, we’re reaching this point seemingly overnight, while our society can’t change that fast.

Planes still use only petroleum-based fuel, and airlines are losing money. They can’t raise fares high enough to offset their fuel costs without also losing customers. Many will go out of business. Truckers can barely afford to fill their tanks for long hauls across country. Many will go out of business, and the price of shipping goods (and, therefore, the price of nearly everything) will continue to rise.

Some people, already living on the edge, will fall off that edge. Most people will simply cut back on other spending in order to afford gas in their cars to go to work. Less spending equals Recession.

I believe that we will eventually solve our energy problem. Unfortunately, it will take years for the country to agree upon a cost-effective alternative to petroleum fuels, develop and produce that alternative, and convert everything that currently runs on petroleum. In the meantime, people are hurting. Why did it take us so long to wake up? The truth is, we didn’t want to hear the truth, and we elected “leaders” who only told us what we wanted to hear, not what we needed to do.