Energy policy; we must break the cycles of transient piety
- Oil prices have bounced from very high to very low. Most Americans are pleased because they now pay less than two dollars a gallon for gas. They are also forgetting their vows to drive less. They hope that they won’t have to buy fuel-efficient cars because the price of gasoline may stay low- this is encouraged by “drill baby, drill” rhetoric. Traffic jams have gotten worse again.
- Gasoline prices are false because they don’t include the pollution, health costs, and climate effects of extensive gasoline use. They ignore the military costs of petroleum: Robert Mugabe and Saddam Hussein were terrible dictators who killed many people. We invaded Iraq and overthrew Hussein while ignoring Mugabe. There are many reasons but the main one was oil- we wanted access to Iraqi oil reserves.
- People won’t reduce driving unless they expect gasoline prices to stay high. We need a flexible gasoline tax: