Or, at least, an irritation with positive side effects
When gas shot up past $3 a gallon, people cried in horror. Now that things are back to relative normality, I look back and think it was a good thing.
It woke up Americans and gave them a foreshadowing of things to come. Europe is already used to the equivalent of four to five dollars a gallon, and they've adjusted with fuel-efficient cars and smart transportation systems and habits.
Things are only going to get worse. China is becoming more industrialized, and they are adding over 1,000 cars per day to their streets! (Thomas Friedman, The World Is Flat) Demand for oil is increasing exponentially, and supply is decreasing exponentially. Once demand overtakes supply, high prices will be a norm.
But this little high blip of September and October forced Americans to prepare a little better for this potentially impending energy crisis. We are buying more energy-efficient vehicles, and auto manufacturers are creating more energy-efficient vehicles. We're learning how to change our habits to adjust to higher prices. All of this helps ease demand and hold the supply.
It spurred on the search for and progress of alternative resources, which will be the only real way to solve an energy crisis and replace finite supplies of oil.
Oil will not last forever, but the panic brought about by these temporary price jumps will help us get ready for the time when they will be high and higher, indefinitely.
Edomdnd the Hun
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5 comments:
our last day of HS is May 11, 2006. i have the inside scoop ;)
-Sanguine
p.s.
i'm scheduled to move to the Alps either May 2007 or May 2010, depending on whether i like college or not.
what good is a college degree in the Alps?
-The Swedish Eskimo
I think you've got it backwards. Europe didn't develop fuel efficient cars and smart transportation systems and habits to adjust to higher costs. Higher costs were imposed to make a profit on nations that never really use cars. Take France's public transportation system for example. It's been in place for a few hundred years. Most European families only own one car for about five or six people. They didn't get greedy like us. Their cars are also already economical, not giant SUVs. So, because few people drove in Europe, their governments raised the taxes to make a profit. And now that their prices are raised, the oil companies say, "well, France will pay us four dollars a gallon, so you should to!"
I also doubt that Americans will learn much from this, unless another major price scare happens immediately afterwards. All the "progress" we've made is just an appeasement tactic to keep the public settled. Remember the lunar program? yeah, that only lasted as long as we had the Russians to compete with. After the USSR fell, we gave that up. I think after prices fall, we'll trade our cars in for guzzlers again. It feeds our ego. Sorry this was so negative, but I have to be honest.
Finien knows what he's talking about ~ Americans are all about the ego-trips. We don't learn lessons the quickest either.
Eskimo, my degree will encourage me in the Alps when I'm writing stories, because it will remind me of what I have already achieved. You were assuming I'd have a degree after 4 years anyways ~ i could decide to party it up for a few years and then leave. ;D
-Sanguine
edmond, remember that other blog you made? go check it out again.
;)
sanguine
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