I know, I know, the American people are suffering. 4$ a gallon, and rising. I should share our nation’s outrage, and feel sorry for my compatriots. At the risk of being perceived, once more, as a cold-hearted human being, I decided to take a look at these numbers – from here and here –
Makes me wish for $8 and up, a gallon . . .
La Marguerite 
Hi,
You guys in America have fuel so cheap! Here in the UK it is costing an absoloute fortune to fill up the tank.
Unfortunately I have to use my car for work otherwise I would walk or take a bus. The stupid thing is that the company I work for a) won’t provide a pool car, b) offer no incentives for driving a more eco-friendly car and c) have kept the mileage rate the same for the last 15 years even though fuel has become more expensive!
Even with fuel prices so high people are still driving SUVs but then tend to be the people wealthy enough not to care.
Hopefully the tide will turn but we will see. Other forms of transport such as trains and buses are exoensive and unreliable.
Cheers,
Laura
http://www.ethicalandgreen.com
Marguerite: Great post and table. La Marguerite is bringing very helpful context, info, and discussion to people. Thanks!
FYI, I’ll be really busy over the next several days, so my comments will be much lighter than normal and might disappear altogether for a short while. So, even on topics of great interest to me, I might not be very present. But, I’ll be back, and I look forward to future topics.
Thanks again!
Cheers.
As I always say, if you think fuel is too expensive, try pushing the thing for a while.
Considering what fuel does for is, I think it’s cheap anywhere in the world. When we travel we insist on taking a tonne of steel with us. We use about 100ml of fuel for each kilometre (1 fluid ounce per mile) we travel with our tonne of steel. I think that’s pretty remarkable, that for only one fluid ounce per mile we can carry ourselves and a tonne of steel at great speed.
Try putting a tonne of steel on a cart and dragging it along, or hiring people to drag it along – I’d be impressed if you could get them going for a fluid ounce of juice or beer per mile between them.
The only problem is that the tonne of steel isn’t baggage, it’s required to burn the fuel and carry us. Looked at that way, it doesn’t seem so efficient.
Still, given what it’s actually doing, it’s pretty damned cheap at ten times the price. Now, if only there were some way to transport more than one person per tonne of steel. Like if someone invented a machine which weighed about as much as a bag of groceries and could be powered by people pushing it, then instead of 70kg of person requiring 1,000kg of vehicle it could be 70kg of person and 10kg of vehicle, wouldn’t that be more efficient.
Gee, I hope someone invents something like that soon.
Marguerite,
These data are as clear as can be–worth as much as a good picture! Hidden behind the data are some not-so-clear pictures. Americans have built an entire settlement pattern–suburban sprawl–on the basis of cheap gasoline. We managed to take a finite resource and create a future for ourselves based on the fantasy that our right for cheap gas, and hence the crude oil from which it comes, was as fundamental an American right as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” In fact we assumed that cheap gas would give us better access to those other rights.
Now we may be at a crossroads. Regular gas at my local station today is $4.439 per gallon–the highest it has been so far. In the short run high gas prices are hard for most people to avoid, but in the longer run Americans could adapt in a number of ways, and probably will. We can drive fewer miles, buy cars that get better gas mileage, or use public transportation whenever possible, for example.
None of those adjustments, however, deal with the fundamental way that we’ve laid out our settlement pattern, especially since the 1950s and creation of the Interstate Highway system. It appears that the world may be close to reaching a peak in oil production–little increase has occurred in the last three years despite very high prices. Because it is a finite resource, its production will peak, just as it did in the U.S. in 1970.
So far Americans have not responded to the changing world supply and demand situation for crude oil by developing a coherent and rational energy policy. Nor have Americans thought much about a world without cheap gas and SUVs. As a result, we have continued an unsustainable lifestyle by importing more and more of our crude oil needs, leaving us increasingly vulnerable to world oil market conditions, to say nothing of possible instability in oil producing nations from Russia and Venezuela to the Middle East. So far our most prominent response to the current high gas prices has been this: the president of the most affluent and powerful nation in the world went to Saudi Arabia and begged the Saudis to pump more oil. What the hell kind of a plan is that?
Crude oil may be getting scarcer, gas prices may be rising, but there is one more critical shortage that this nation seems unable to find a cure for–we have a leadership deficit that has grown intolerably. Early in the life of this nation, when our population was still slightly less than four million people, we were able to find leaders such as Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Today, with more than 300 million people, you’ve seen what we’ve been able to come up with.
Back to gasoline. Current projections for future crude prices range from $50-200 per barrel, but only time will tell. Even if production rises in some areas, it will continue to decline in others. Worse yet for the U.S., many producing countries are using more oil themselves, so even if their production does not drop, their exports probably will. Because we live far beyond our means with respect to crude oil, it is exportable production, not total production, that will most affect us. Barring some colossal petroleum discoveries–deemed unlikely even by most optimists–the future for U.S. oil imports, hence gas prices, looks like one of continued rises, perhaps punctuated now and again by outright scarcities.
For any scenario close to the above, we are not prepared, nor are we making preparations. Rather, Americans seem to be convinced that if gas really gets too expensive, then some other fuel will suddenly appear to take its place, thus allowing us to maintain our lifestyles, complete with 100-mile round-trip commutes and big SUVs. We are convinced that “the center will hold.” But that may be more fantasy than reality. Even if we turned our entire corn supply into ethanol, it would do little more than dent the problem, and food prices would soar. Hybrids will help, but they can only stretch out the time horizon, not solve the problem. Arnold’s “hydrogen highway” is unrealistic, if not mostly fantasy.
Whereas the Europeans used taxes to increase gas prices and discourage consumption, and have done so for a long time, we chose the path of cheap gas, suburban sprawl, and poor mass transit systems, including trains. The Europeans then used those taxes to improve alternate transportation systems, from intra-city metros to inter-city high-speed trains.
Even as we watch gas prices go up steadily, we are also watching passenger airlines fold up or gasp in pain as higher fuel prices take their toll. In most parts of the U.S. there are not alternatives such as good-quality rail service to take up the slack when air travel becomes too expensive for most travelers. Americans have avoided high taxes on gasoline, but in the process have become dependent on a finite resource that will ultimately let them down. The mantra of low or no taxes will have to be reconciled at some point with the lack of services and infrastructure, and that point may now be nearer than you think.
http://goesdownbitter.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/piggy-bank/
Gas and other forms of energy are cheap in historical terms and they built the modern world. But nothing is free and Americans are suddenly waking up from their gluttony to that fact and wondering how it happened.
I think France really stands out in this chart, but I think this is due to the fact they’re generating most of their electricity with nuclear. This also points out that showing total carbon emissions per capita is not the best way to show the effect of higher or lower gas prices.
I suppose there would be a correlation between gas prices and average fuel efficiency of cars, and kilometers driven when adjusted for residential density.
After trying to write something intelligible about gas taxes, I decided I couldn’t. It’s too hard to do quickly. I don’t even know all the issues involved. I do think this argument by Monica Prasad is important to consider:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/opinion/25prasad.html
Part of the problem with oil-based fuel production is that we tend to point fingers all over the place across the world (90% of which has build their economy and infrastructure around oil as a fue source), instead of focusing on the solution. You can all yammer on about who is to blame, who is ignorant of the situation, etc. when the reality is that everyone is – Americans, Europeans, Chinese, Russians, and so on.
Not to belittle the wall of text that Gary so unceremoniously dumped here, but instead of complaining about the problem that stems from 60 or more years of terrible resource management and investiment in a limited fossil fuel, we should do something about it. I think nihilists are fear-mongering fools and let fear drive them, to be honest.
There are many people trying to develop newer sources of energy. Everything from methane to algae vegetable oil refining is being tested. Eventually, someone will – as the saying goes – invent a better wheel.
Rising gasoline prices are both a boon and a curse at the same time. It gives us a sense of urgency and wakes up those sleeping behind the wheel, while at the same time rising prices all over the world, not helping us solve another issue that is gnawing at the edges – world hunger and poverty.
It’s not a matter of “the world is doomed oh noes!” We’re still going to be here for a long, long time locked in the status quo of civilization, so we might as well be trying to fix the problems instead of bemoaning them.
> Meryn you are right when mentioning the fact that France really stands out of the crowd and about nuclear.
I have an article that will come soon on that. (comparison of France and Germany in fact. Shows that there are bright and darker sides for both countries… )
> Gary : nice text, I agree with you ! 🙂
do you think the the higher prices resulted in lower emissions ? I know I am driving less. Thus contributing less. I am sure these countries as their prices went up had a shift in thinking. Maybe that’s what it would take. I can afford a tank a month. period. shifts where one “goes”
Gary, you are raising a most important question. The need to quickly adapt our car-based infrastructure to new alternatives that are not so oil dependent, as in better public transportation, telecommuting, fast switch to renewable energies to power personal vehicles, etc. This is a huge problem in America. Not so in other countries.
Mclaud, I don’t think we disagree . . . except for your comment on other reader’s comment. Let us be all to try to be civil and kind!
Meryn,
Thanks for mentioning the article by Monica Prasad–I had not read it. Curiously, she puts herself at odds with most economists in the U.S. with respect to the effect of a carbon tax. She also displays a fear of government that seems extreme to me, along with a corresponding faith in private enterprise.
Ms. Prasad wrote that “An increase in gasoline taxes — the first instinct of many American policy makers when the idea of a carbon tax comes up — would likewise be the wrong policy for the United States. Higher gas taxes would raise revenue but do little to curb pollution.” Whether the U.S. should impose carbon taxes or not may be debateable, though even conservative economists such as Greg Mankiw have come out in favor of it. That debate is going on now in Congress. But her further suggestion that a carbon tax (or any other tax) would “do little to curb pollution” suggests that she would argue that higher taxes on gasoline, for example, would not affect consumption. That makes no sense unless you argue that price has no influence on consumption, in which case I guess you repeal the law of supply and demand. Bill McKibben was probaby closer to the truth when he wrote that “If carbon carried a real price, then we’d be building windmills far faster than we are now.”
Mcclaud,
Unceremoniously? I’m sorry.
You’re statement that “There are many people trying to develop newer sources of energy. Everything from methane to algae vegetable oil refining is being tested. Eventually, someone will – as the saying goes – invent a better wheel,” is the typical stand taken by cornucopians everywhere, and by most modern neoclassical economists as well. Even Paul Krugman noted recently that “[M]odern economics is a product of the Industrial Revolution. It will take a major reorientation to adapt its precepts to a world where growth is constrained by resource limits and the need to manage externalities, such as greenhouse gas emissions, garbage, and pollution.” As Vaclav Smil wrote, “Today there is no readily available non-fossil energy source that is large enough to be exploited on the requisite scale.”
There is a considerable difference between nihilism and realism. As ecological economist Herman Daly pointed out, “The economy has gotten bigger, the ecosystem has not.” Tom Athanasiou wrote that “In a world torn between affluence and poverty, the crackpot realists tell the poor, who must live from day to day, that all will be well in the long run. Amidst deepening ecological crisis, they rush to embrace small, cosmetic adaptations.”
We cannot fix problems until we can first identify them, and in today’s world that is a difficult task. Maybe Bill McKibben went a bit too far when he wrote recently that “All of a sudden it isn’t morning in America, it’s dusk on planet Earth.” However, his statement seems much more credible to me than Julian Simon (now deceased but clearly head of the cornucopians) commenting that “There is no theoretical limit to the number of people the world can support,” and “The earth can support an ever-growing human population for seven billion years.” (He did later amend the latter from billion to million!)
I don’t want to get rid of humans, but I would argue that there are too many of us and that we are living out of balance with Earth’s ecosystem. Though I don’t go quite so far as ecologist Hazel Henderson did when she referred to modern economics as “a form of brain disease,” I do think that the human quest to consume more of everything has gone too far. As John Feeney put it recently, “We humans face two problems of desperate importance. The first is our ecological plight. The second is our difficulty acknowledging the first.”
Meryn, great link! Lots of good ideas in that article.
As usual, I so much appreciate the diversity of views and insights, that you all bring. All I do is to get the process started. Thanks all!
I think Hunter S. Thompson summed up Americans & Cars nicely when he said:
“Old elephants limp off to the hills to die; old Americans go out to the highway and drive themselves to death with huge cars.”
http://totallygonzo.wordpress.com
Ron, great quote!
lamarguerite — indeed, we should do as the European countries do and raise the price by adding taxes, which then are used to create good, reliable, efficient public transportation that can replace the private automobile. I live in a rural area, where there is no public transportation at all -none. There are not even busses between rural communities and urban areas (that were once common in the mountains). Areas where I live, could relatively easily adapt electric trolley buses (that run on tires on existing roads), to provide public transportation if there was sufficient tax money available for it.
I have to agree with you. As much as I hate filling up, we really need to find other ways of powering our cars.
I wonder how many Americans would sign a petition saying they’d like $8 / gallon gas. I wonder if such a petition would go viral. You’d need a nice web page, good copy, etc, first of course.
I don’t care what other countries pay for gas! I only care about what I’m paying here in the USA. Since you have so much sympathy for them and none for us – get your sorry ass out of the country and go pay $8 for a gallon of gas dumbass!
Pinkroses, I understand your frustration, and at the same time I am sorry you see things that way. If you landed on this blog, I assume you have some awareness of climate change and the huge challenge ahead of us?
Meryn, the petition would be some kind of paradoxical gesture. Not sure how it would go! 🙂
Sue, I like your idea. Of course, there are all kinds of fancy ways to deal with carbon tax redistribution! And there are many experts in this community with much to say about this.
I wasn’t necessarily calling Gary a nihilist, but there’s a lot of popular opinion that runs parallel to his that runs into nihilism, and that’s not going to solve anything. I was saying that a lot of problems are not going to go away by dooming-and-glooming about them.
This went on a tangent to the impact of humans on the environment and an ecological population cap. I was merely addressing the point on hand: the world runs on energy for everything. Basing it on oil was a bad idea, and the reality is that we have to get off the oil track incrementally until we’re independent from the resource. We can’t just suddenly cut off the dependence and hope that everything works out.
The ecological population cap and humanity’s impact on the environment has one solution that world governments do not take seriously (although they spin propaganda about it very well) and that’s going into space. Unfortunately, our space programs are so underfunded that the most likely, temporary fix for us is that the enviroment will become hostile enough to eliminate large amounts of people through disasters or other means until a balance is reached. I do agree with you there.
Still like the debates here, still very interesting Marguerite and my fellow commentators. Keep up the good work !
Further to my comment (#8), I’d like to inform you that my article on German emissions vs French ones is online.
Your table Marguerite made me think. Here in France we hear we have to cut by a factor four our CO2 emissions by 2050. That would bring them to 1.5 ton per capita.
In the grand ol’ United States of America, you seem to talk about decreasing them by a factor five. That would bring your emissions to 4 tons per capita.
In the end, there would still be quite a discrepancy between the two countries and I think that might be used as an excuse for people here to say stuff like ” we are not going that far if the US folks don’t go as far as we go”…
What do you think ? I am being paranoid, or just thinking too much ?
I just love the elitists who don’t care if working people – the couriers, the truckers, the cab drivers, the pizza delivery drivers – can make a living or not. Most of these workers pay for fuel out of their own pockets. When fuel goes up, their income goes down.
But what do environmentalists care? Working people need to eat less anyway so that the sight of their overweight bodies doesn’t offend their betters. After all, their purpose is to take care the elites, right? Keeping them lean and poor will make them work that much harder.
Don’t look at me, Edouard, I’m all for us – that’s all of us, every last person on the planet – going for one tonne.
For our two-person household, we’re looking at about 12t for the household this year. 5.3t of that is one interstate and one international trip taken by my woman. This makes us 6t each, about 50% Western average and 160% world average.
Absent that double trip, we’d be at about 3.4t each, 30% Western average, 91% world average, though still well above the 1t goal.
We’re getting a homestay student soon and for 17 weeks, this will give us some economies of scale. If we scratch the plane journeys and buy very few new consumer products, it comes down to about 1.9t each.
If we got rid of the car (which we could do, but for the spouse’s wishes) and replaced our gas hot water with gas-boosted solar (which we can’t do as we’re renting), then we could squeeze down to 1.1t each – that’s with the third person. Setting aside the 125g of beef each a week would bring it to 1t.
So it’s quite achieveable. I could certainly do it on my own, but as we all know, having a spouse both helps you and hinders you in certain ways 🙂
Oh, and Caitlin, pinkroses and all the rest – it’d be impolite to Marguerite to express what I think of your comments here on her blog, you ought to come to my blog where I will engage in a full and frank discussion with you.
Kyle, let me make one thing clear. I am all for full and frank discussions in this blog. As long as a minimum of courtesy goes. And even that, is quite a subjective standard . . . It is only through these kinds of discussions that we will arrive at true solutions. Caitlin and Pinkroses speak for a large part of the population. I also understand where they are coming from.
Part of the problem, as outlined by Gary, is the lack of readily available solutions to make the needed transition. Instead, people will have to show resourcefulness, as in: carpooling, cutting down driving and unnecessary expenses, better planning of car trips, and using public transportation whenever possible.
And yes, the poor will be hit the hardest, as their wallets do not have the elasticity to accommodate for these higher gas prices. The rich will have to engage in self-restraint, and voluntarily cut down on their consumption. In the city where I live, where people are not exactly poor, I am witnessing more and more people showing signs of increased environmental consciousness, and getting rid of their SUVs, and carpooling, and cutting down on their expenses, all in the name of the planet.
[…] this lady has it easy. Embarrassed soccer moms in Europe have it even […]
> Kiashu, yeah, the one tonne thing.. I remember that one. I guess it is feasible for us, with our (quite) low carbon energy.
However, for Americans and many other countries… that would be a major stuff to work out.
> Marguerite : Yes, people are moving, at long last. But the road will be long, and hard… and there are many people who don’t see the benefit ( let alone the absolute necessity) to walk the walk…
Hopefully, with time… But do we still have time ? The IEA’s latest report make me doubt :
http://www.elrst.com/2008/06/06/iea-urges-for-a-technology-revolution/
> To you all : enjoy your weekend ! 🙂
Edouard, thanks for bringing up the IEA report. Yet another report saying we can take care of things, but we have to act now. Or else, it ain’t going to be pretty. $45 trillion dollars is small change on the world scale.
One little percent of the world’s wealth, that’s indeed not much considering what is at stake.
Personally, I would gladly take that amount from my own wage to save Civilization and the world I live…
And the solutions are not really tough. The UNEP proposed many ways for us to act yesterday as it was World Environment Day
Some people stated that solutions would cost a lot… not that much in fact…
It is really a matter of paying a little bit now, versus A LOT MORE later. Most people can’t wrap their head around that one however.
It’s insurance.
Ross Garnaut, the conservative economist the government got to do a study on what we ought to do about climate change – in the hopes that as a conservative economist he’d say “nothing! Just toss more money at fossil fuel companies and build more roads!” – has said that it’s like insurance.
He says, sure, it might be a few percentage points of GDP and on something which is (according to CC deniers) low-risk, but look at the military – we spend several percent of GDP protecting against pretty low risk scenarios, “what if we were invaded?” and so on.
Putting in renewables and lots of public transport and so on is insurance against a fossil fuel scarce future, and one where we try to avoid the risk of catastrophic climate change. It’s not radical at all, really. Quite conservative. Your grandmother would tell you to save money and pay your insurance premiums.
Yeah, Lord Nicholas Stern – definitively not a joe schmoe without any degree as he got a PhD in economics – came up with the same figure and the same conclusions : which can be summed up as :
” Pay your energy-climate bill of insurance right now or suffer huge consequences later. ”
I really would like that the governments from around the world would actually listen to him and other people and act…
Talk is nice, but action are necessary. Quick !
Kyle, Edouard, I like your concept of ‘insurance’. A concept already familiar to all people. Back to the importance of narrative, and of using the right framework to help folks understand, really understand. And get moving.
The insurance concept may be a good way of seeing the basic argument about whether we should do anything about global warming. Put simply, it comes down to this: How much money are we willing to spend today (a real cost to us in a lower standard of living) to help people a century or two from now (a real benefit, but one that we will not see)?
In the official summary for the Stern Review, it says, for example, “The costs of stabilizing the climate are significant but manageable; delay would be dangerous and much more costly.” This may be true, but the question becomes “dangerous and much more costly” for whom? And when?
Two trends, one outlined by climatologists and another by economists, are intertwined here. Climatologists and their models tell us that we face a warmer future, perhaps with serious or even catastrophic consequences, though the when and where of these consequences are known only vaguely at this time. Economists tell us that people will be much more affluent in the future than they are now, though we don’t know when or how much wealthier.
Thus, the unknowns are considerable, so it is little wonder that even professional economists and others are at odds about what and how much the current generation should sacrifice now for what appears to be more affluent future generations. Ultimately, it is not an economic but an ethical choice that we need to make, and for the sake of future generations I personally think that we need to act now–I’m just trying here to understand why it is not a simple choice for everyone.
The question of when is important. My understanding of latest climate research is we are going to feel the consequences in our lifetime. THAT gets my attention.
Why it is not a simple choice for everyone, makes me think of those people, who when faced with a life threatening illness, choose to ignore it, and keep going with life as usual. It’s called DENIAL . . .
For the masses, there is also a great deal of misinformation, further exacerbated by the ongoing flux of new, raw scientific information, leading to further questions, etc. People do not deal well with nuances and uncertainties. This gets back to the need to have a real mass communications campaign.
Marguerite,
We are already feeling the consequences of global warming, but most of the world’s 6.7 billion people would, today, I think, opt for more now, and let the consequences of global warming fall where they may. Keep up the good work.
Gary, being an optimist, I would like to believe that the tide is turning, although too slowly for my own comfort!
I agree with you, the tide is turning, and yes it is too slow. I prepared an article for tomorrow on the G8 meeting and their conclusions.
Basically, these countries are more concerned by oil prices, but thankfully, THAT is forcing them into action in the right direction.
I was thinking about something : President Bush stated that the USA wouldn’t ratify the Kyoto Protocol as it would decrease the competitiveness of home companies.
But what if it was the opposite ? Companies would have a lower consumption of energy, and would thus have more money to invest or could sell at lower prices…
What do you think about that ? I look forward to reading your answers. Meanwhile, enjoy ! 🙂
You are absolutely right, Edouard. I think the sticky point is at the transition from oil to zero carbon driven economy. It won’t be smooth and some of our coward politicians are not willing to face the hurdles and the headaches. They prefer to save those for their successors.
I would like to know other things about those countries, such as how much oil they import compared to each other, as well as per capita income. I know the US will probably be higher, but what are the different prices of living for those areas too? No matter what each country is paying quite a bit for gas and oil and it’s costing everyone a lot. From just filling up to your tank to heating costs to buying the necessities like food for the families.
Well it seems the cheaper the oil is the more it is being used I would be interested to see the Arabian world CO2 emissions as gas is the cheapest there what about Dubai and other UAE states?
Cheap? LOL Obama is against off shore drilling but he has a good reason!http://goodtimepolitics.com/2008/06/23/why-obama-supports-ethanol-production-over-off-shore-drilling/