Sometimes things are hard because of circumstances outside of our control. Natural disasters or other world events love to throw curveballs and we just have to figure out some way to roll with ‘em. Other times, things are hard because of our own choices, and the hard parts are completely avoidable if we just do things differently. The pain we’re experiencing every time we fill up our cars with gas is that second one.
Here are Five Fast Facts about self-inflicted pain at the pump:
- 📈 Onward And Upward - At the time of this writing, oil is over $80 per barrel, and gas prices are rising again. Sure, it’s partly the whole summer blend thing, but the bigger cause is our nation’s choices. Oil pricing, in particular, is highly sensitive to speculation, meaning the prices today are determined by expected future production. Get your crystal ball out!
- 🚫 Cutting Down - The Biden administration has banned oil development on 13 million acres in Alaska, set requirements for massive increases in EVs that no one wants, and has signaled over and over that there will be less oil produced while he’s running things. To paraphrase the chef on that classic Seinfeld episode: no oil for you!
- ⛏️ But Wait, There’s More - But it’s not only oil. There have also been bans on copper mining in Alaska, uranium mining in Arizona, deep-sea mining for minerals critical to making batteries, and more. Many resources critical to our high tech society have gotten more expensive because we’re relying on others to go get them for us. #slackers
- 🛢️ Projecting Forward - But back to oil. At current consumption rates, we’ve got enough available oil for at least 200 years of use! And that doesn’t even include the fact that we’re always finding new ways to get more oil, or get it more efficiently (and cleanly).
- 😒 All This…For Just That? - The reason given for cutting back is to protect the environment. That’s great, but the irony there is that we’re already leading the pack in reducing carbon emissions by 1,000 million metric tons over the past couple decades. If we suddenly ditched ALL fossil fuels tomorrow, it would only affect global temperatures by two tenths of a degree Celsius over the next 80 years (while completely wrecking our economy). That’s not much bang for the buck.
🔥Bottom line: The world runs on oil and other natural resources. Not just for our cars, but also for all the plastics, clothing, transportation, pharmaceuticals, and more that come from oil or are produced using oil in the process. Someone is going to go get those resources out in the world. It can be us, with our clean technology and concern for the environment, or it can be someone else who doesn’t care how much pollution they throw out while they do it. It can be us who get the benefit of all those high paying jobs and selling the resources to other nations, or we can be forced to pay higher prices and be more dependent on the nations who go do it (not all of which are friendly to us).
We have all the natural resources we need for a very long time, but our own choices are making things much more expensive today. Maybe it’s time we rethink those choices. Your Paychecks will certainly thank you.
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