How Long Before $5?

Five dollars per gallon at the gas pump, that is. The current trend suggests we will get there sooner than we think, and definitely before we care to shell out that kind of deniro. Months ago, analysts predicted gasoline would eclipse $4 per gallon by sometime this summer. Needless to say, those predictions were undersold. We surpassed $4 per gallon all over the country before Memorial Day, the symbolic kick-off of all things summer.

On one remote island in Hawaii, prices have already eclipsed $5 per gallon, and of course in Europe, the price for fuel has long exceeded costs here in the United States. In many cases, Europeans are already paying over $8 dollars per gallon.

The rising cost of fuel is one of the great examples of the Theory of Supply and Demand. Increased demand, without a concurrent increase in production leads to an increase in price. While Americans of virtually every stripe have preached striking some balance that results in less intense demand for fuel, increased fuel production, diversifying fuel sources, expanding the use of alternative fuel sources, elevating the miles per gallon of vehicles, and purchasing and operating more hybrids, and other low emissions vehicles.

These are all worthy objectives, but progress has been tediously slow. Part of the reason for this has been the high availability of relatively cheap gasoline here in the United States. Even now many Europeans pay almost twice as much as Americans.

Another reason Americans have not risen to the challenge of energy management and conservation is we have an on-going love affair with our automobiles. Spurred by what many referred to as rugged individualism, we retreat to our cars as the last real inner sanctum; a place where we can go to be with our thoughts, and our selves.

When besieged by the cares of the world, the automobile has been our trusted steed, our means of escape, a virtual Fortress of Solitude…no offense to Superman (who did not really need a car). Some of the great American cities are proverbial shrines to automobiles. None fits the bill more aptly than Los Angeles. With it’s plethora of interconnecting freeways, expressways, and super highways, LA screams its allegiance to cars. The bigger, the faster, the newer…the better, seems to frame it just about right.

In the final analysis, our good intentions are undone by our inner demons. Our need for speed gets in the way. Our addiction to big powerful engines trips us up. Our fondness for SUV’s dejour, ensures that our dreams of fuel consciousness are just that, ephemeral notions floating out there in the ether.

With all the certainty of knowing that a rising object, thrown up into the sky, is destined to fall back to Earth, we can rest assured that we are locked, loaded on a course sure to thrust us into a collision with $5 per gallon gasoline.

Bon voyage; happy trails; holla back!

Read my blog anytime by clicking the link: http://thesphinxofcharlotte.blogspot.com. A new post is published each Wednesday.


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