Ch-ch-ch-changes. Gas prices over 4 bucks-a-gallon. Foreclosures still rising, housing values still dropping. It’s an election year. There’s increasing awareness of carbon footprints. Automobile design is accelerating to catch up with evolving priorities. It’s sounding more and more like overall petroleum demand will continue to exceed overall supplies. All of these facts add up to a market in transition, yet the same old sources continue to project the future based on…what?
In this NY Times article, “Adapting, With Gritted Teeth, to Higher Gas Prices” we find the following glass half full statements:
- “despite the rise in energy prices, gasoline remains cheaper in America than in most industrialized countries”
- “Americans pay less to drive a mile today than they did in 1980″
- “The Energy Department expects gasoline sales to fall by 0.6 percent this year, the first drop since 1991, but it expects consumption to rebound in 2009 as the economy strengthens.”
First of all, most industrialized countries have not developed a suburb-based settlement pattern that forces people to drive long distances to work. And maybe we pay less to drive a mile now than we did in 1980, but so what? That kind of relativity doesn’t help people adapt. And expectations that consumption will rebound in 2009 are based in some kind of consumer psychology that I doubt can be applied to conditions today.
To the credit of the American citizen, we are making adjustments. Who’da thunk we’d be adopting adaptive behaviors this early in the climate change progression? (Answer: the peak oil folks) And, in truth, we’re well along in the climate change progression. Yet, until gas prices skyrocketed, most people were content to change their lightbulbs, if that.
Rational behaviors for doubled gasoline prices: Drive less. Cut back on unnecessary purchases, Buy more fuel efficient vehicles. Use mass transit. Don’t assume this will be a temporary passage. This is a transition. Dont’ look back. Things will be different on the other side.