Fwd: Let's Stop Complaining!

[Tom Lamar <lamar@pcei.org>]

A broader look at gasoline prices:

>Living on the Earth, March 3, 2000,  Let's Stop Complaining!
>
>The big news last Monday was that gasoline in this country reached its
>highest average price ever, $1.47 per gallon.   Although much was made of
>this historic high price, we should realize how ridiculously cheap gasoline
>actually is here and how destructive our gluttonous individual and societal
>addiction to it is.  Americans are really quite spoiled.
>
>Gasoline's an amazing, energy-filled substance, the product of an immense
>infrastructure which reaches from wells deep into a desert half-way around
>the world, through exotic-organism-spreading super tankers, subsidized
>ports and sprawling refineries, to underground tanks leaking MTBE into
>water supplies and tail pipes spewing a toxic mix into the air we breathe.
>At every stage, energy use and pollution abound.
>
>One gallon of gasoline, which powers an SUV for about twenty minutes,
>contains energy equal what a human being gets from ten day's worth of
>nutritious meals.  That makes us at least 700 times as efficient at using
>energy as one of these gas-guzzling vehicles.  And, gasoline's price
>represents a mere 10 to 30 percent of the cost of owning and operating an
>automobile.
>
>Our addiction to gasoline is especially destructive because its external
>costs are so high.  These costs (which are not included in the pump price)
>are paid for with our taxes and with increasing environment damage and
>climate instability.   External costs include:  corporate tax benefits,
>local air pollution, urban sprawl, a large and unknown variety of
>abnormally strong, climate-related events including floods, hurricanes,
>cyclones, heat waves, droughts and the spread of exotic diseases, as well
>as the defense of the Persian Gulf (estimated ten years ago to cost half a
>trillion dollars annually; that's over $2000 per US citizen every year).
>
>Considering all this, gasoline's cost per gallon is ridiculously low!  It
>is less than that of milk, most bottled water, soda, or even one cup of
>cappuccino.  Last summer, in Europe, we paid about $5 a gallon for
>gasoline, probably much closer to its true cost.  At $55 a fill-up, we were
>amazed.  Meanwhile, at Connecticut movie theaters, bottled water costs
>between $12 and $15 a gallon.  Humans lived for hundreds of millennia
>without gasoline.  We can't live for more than a few days without water.
>
>The lower the price of gasoline, the more we use it and the more the
>external costs add up. Americans, who make up less than five percent of the
>world's population, own over 33 percent of the Earth's cars.  Compared to
>1950, the planet now has twice as many people and ten times as many
>automobiles.
>
>Like drug pushers, the petroleum industry, especially the multinational oil
>companies and OPEC, have a self-serving interest in keeping the world
>addicted to their product.  They want the price to be just below the
>breaking point- the price at which we seriously consider ending our
>addiction and turning to more environmentally benign ways of satisfying our
>energy needs.  These include walking, driving less, using more efficient
>trains, buses and cars or even getting vegetables from our back yards
>instead of from Mexico or California via a supermarket.
>
>Connecticut Governor John Rowland, however, wants to encourage our
>destructive addiction.  He plans to lower gasoline taxes and raise the
>price of bus rides.
>
>The problems resulting from our gluttonous gasoline use are real and
>growing.  Since neither government nor industry shows any signs of doing
>anything about them, it is up to individuals and communities to stop
>complaining and find ways to use less gasoline energy.
>
>
>This is Bill Duesing, Living on the Earth
>
>Bill and Suzanne Duesing operate the Old Solar Farm (raising NOFA/CT
>certified organic vegetables) and Solar Farm Education (working on urban
>agriculture projects in southern Connecticut and producing "Living on the
>Earth" radio programs). Their collection of essays "Living on the Earth:
>Eclectic Essays for a Sustainable and Joyful Future" is available from Bill
>Duesing, Box 135, Stevenson, CT 06491 for $10 postpaid or from Amazon.com.
>
>Now in its tenth year, "Living on the Earth" airs at 6:53 Friday mornings
>on WSHU, 91.1 FM Public Radio, serving Connecticut and Long Island.  Essays
>from 1995 to the present, and an audio version of this week's essay are
>available at www.wshu.org/duesing.
>
>Distribution of these essays is encouraged.  Reprinting rights available by
>request.
>
>(C)2000, Bill Duesing, Solar Farm Education, Box 135, Stevenson, CT 06491
>
>------- End of forwarded message -------

Thomas C. Lamar, Executive Director

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Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute
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Moscow ID 83843-1096
Phone (208)882-1444; Fax (208)882-8029
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Please note our individual staff email addresses below:

Thomas C. Lamar, Executive Director: lamar@pcei.org
Laurie Gardes, Financial Manager:  gardes@pcei.org
Anita Grover, Watersheds: grover@pcei.org
Peggy Adams, Watersheds/Food Systems: adams@pcei.org
Ashley Martens, Environmental Education: martens@pcei.org
Lizabeth Edlund, Environmental Education, AmeriCorps: edlund@pcei.org
Jon Barrett, Idaho Smart Growth:  smartgro@micron.net
Elaine Clegg, Idaho Smart Growth:  eclegg@micron.net

Celebrating fourteen years of "connecting people, place and community".
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