Myths that need to be busted, dispelled, and otherwise put to bed. Part 1

There are a lot of things that can get me riled up and persistent myth making by those who wrongly assume they have the power is one of the biggies. We hear about or read about these myths from the political arena (especially during the election cycles) and from the news media be it print, television, or internet. Too often, we're being sold a bunch of snake oil from slick looking hucksters in suits and a lot of people are buying. For that reason I'd like to dispel some of the myths that get me worked up the most. For this post, I'll start with myths about the price of gasoline.

I had a conversation with a mechanic who was working on our 1993 pick up recently about the price of gas. He said something to the effect that "gas is too expensive" and "could be cheaper" if someone would do something about it. The myth that gas is expensive in the U.S. is pure fiction. A lot of people seem to be unaware that we are now in the midst of a phenomena called peak oil. That basically means that all the easy to get oil has already been taken out of the ground, refined, and used up whether as gasoline, agricultural chemicals, or the myriad other uses for oil based products. Now the oil coming out of the ground is getting harder to come by and companies are going into increasingly sensitive areas to find and extract it, such as pristine rain forests in South America or deep water drilling in the world's ocean. We all saw how terribly wrong that can go with the still horrifically damaged Gulf of Mexico. Corporations and politicians are allowing the natural capital of the world to be used up for the sake of an increasingly arbitrary concept called money. This behavior is similar to heroin junkies shooting up into the veins of their genitals because those are the only veins they have left that are not track marked into oblivion.

Coupled with the ignorance about the reality of peak oil is the false belief that we as Americans have some sort of right to cheaper gasoline. Those with this view fail to comprehend that our gas is already incredibly cheap compared to many areas of the developed world. From 1997-1999 I lived in England. While there I worked at the gas station on a military base that housed American service personnel and civilian contractors. Our gas on base was sold only to those American personnel for about $1.35/gallon. British citizens filling up in London, York, Sheffield, Glasgow Cardiff or any other town were paying about $5.00 a gallon at that time. These days in England it's over $7.00 a gallon and in France I read recently it's somewhere in the neighborhood of $8.00 or more. Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute speaks of a report published over a decade ago that said the true societal costs for using fossil fuels should make gas over $10.00 per gallon due to the enormous subsidies and tax breaks governments give oil and gas companies, the ecological damage done in obtaining them, and the health implications from breathing air that is toxic due to automobile and other emissions. With that in mind, our current $3.50 per gallon gas is ludicrously cheap. Considering that those aforementioned companies are raking in record breaking profits, I'm surprised that people are being so passive about it all.

A final myth surrounding this issue is the belief that the current resident of the White House is to blame or can take credit for the price of gas. This is pure nonsense irrespective of whether the puppet at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is a republican or a democrat. The President of the United States has beggar all to do with it, unless he (or eventually she) finally makes it politically palatable to raise taxes on fuel prices or chooses to end subsidies to the likes of Shell, Exxon Mobil, BP et al. The president also does not set the supply and can do nothing about the ever increasing demand for gas and oil from emerging economies such as China and India. In those countries with their teeming BILLIONS of people, they have decided that passenger cars are the way forward (someone should tell them about peak oil too).

To sum up, gas in the U.S. is cheap all things considered. What makes it feel expensive when we fill up at the pump is the number of outlandishly large vehicles we drive and the ridiculously low miles per gallon ratings on almost every vehicle on American roads (25 m.p.g. is NOT good gas mileage, nor is 50 for that matter). The fact that Americans drive so much for any and every reason and use public transit, bike, walk so little is also a factor. The 'go speed racer go' type speeds of drivers all over the place adds up monetarily as well. The faster one drives, the more often one needs to fill the tank. Sooner or later all of this will change because the reality of peak oil and increased demand for oil will make it happen. Hopefully, Americans and the rest of the world that is wedded to their cars will get the memo quickly. If not things could turn out much harder than they need to be. Knowing the truth about oil is a good place to start.

Some links for further exploration:

Peak Oil author Richard Heinberg (copy and paste to your browser)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybRz91eimTg


Driving tips to save on gas
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/drivehabits.shtml