It's About Time

According to new earlier in the week a car was the best selling vehicle in the United State last month. It's about time. The trucks and SUVs and other variations on our gas-guzzling addiction are being challenged. GM is cutting it's truck production.

Gas is at or above $4.00/gallon in most of the United States. We are outraged. Somebody is ripping us off. Or perhaps we are about to realize that it is our own addiction to oil that has ripped us off for so many years. We have insisted on cheap gas and have been given it by, among other things, government subsidies. CNN has listed what gas costs in some other places in the world in US dollars.

Netherlands Amsterdam $6.48
Norway Oslo $6.27
Italy Milan $5.96
Denmark Copenhagen $5.93
Belgium Brussels $5.91
Sweden Stockholm $5.80
United Kingdom London $5.79
Germany Frankfurt $5.57
France Paris $5.54
Portugal Lisbon $5.35
Hungary Budapest $4.94
Luxembourg $4.82
Croatia Zagreb $4.81
Ireland Dublin $4.78
Switzerland Geneva $4.74
Spain Madrid $4.55
Japan Tokyo $4.24
Czech Republic Prague $4.19
Romania Bucharest $4.09
Andorra $4.08

One of our automakers has promised to subsidize the price of gas for buyers of some of its gas guzzlers. Why not promise that to those who buy a hybrid? That's like subsidizing the price of cocaine on the streets so more people will buy it. This idea comes from something Tom Friedman had in his column on 5/28:

I can’t say it better than my friend Tim Shriver, the chairman of Special Olympics, did in a Memorial Day essay in The Washington Post: “So Dodge wants to sell you a car you don’t really want to buy, that is not fuel-efficient, will further damage our environment, and will further subsidize oil states, some of which are on the other side of the wars we’re currently fighting. ... The planet be damned, the troops be forgotten, the economy be ignored: buy a Dodge.”
--NYT

Today some analysts commented on the big jump in oil prices that it must be an investment "bubble" say like the dot com bubble.

Aah, just hold on then. The bubble will burst and gas will be back down where it belongs so we can drive like we like to and think we have a right to. In spite of how much I love to drive and travel, I hope not. Even though I have already had to cancel what was an exciting dream trip for my birthday because of rising prices, I believe it is better for us to be where we are than where we used to be.

It is forcing me- and I am sure others- to reevaluate our national and personal lifestyle. It raises important questions for our future. I for one have very few answers. More fuel-efficient cars more readily available is an obvious short-term answer. Beyond that the technological answers are somewhere in development pipelines or in the visions of dreamers.

Until then, like the addicts that we are, we are going to have to go through withdrawal. Take the steps we need to gain control over our addictive behavior. Then look for our own personal answers. Good luck. We will need it.