Gas too cheap

To the Editor:

Gas is too cheap. When I was a boy in the 1950s the price of gasoline was (CPI inflation adjusted) about the same as today. So why is gas too cheap, when the price is about the same? 

 In the 1950s climate change was not yet a threat to life on Earth. We had different pollution problems. Our roads were everywhere littered with trash. Industrial area rivers and lakes were poisoned with toxic chemicals. We had lung damaging asbestos shedding from deteriorating insulation. We had brain damaging lead in paint peeling off the woodwork and walls of old homes. We even had lead in the exhaust fumes of our cars and trucks.

 Today our vehicles get double the miles out of a gallon of gas. That means we should afford to pay twice as much per gallon. If we weren’t threatened by the escalating costs of increasingly extreme weather events, we might ask: Why worry about cheap gas? Isn’t cheap gas a good thing?

 No, not a good thing. Cheap gas encourages us to use more than we should. We should be reserving our uses of carbon-based fuels and products to where really needed. Asphalt that renews our roads stays on the ground. Plastics are incredibly useful derivatives of natural gas and petroleum. If plastic waste issues can be resolved, plastics can be a good use. On farms, in construction, and in industry powerful internal combustion engines are still needed. Until our older cars fall apart, we will still need some gas to operate them. But we don’t need to be building new cars, SUVs or pickups with gas or diesel engines. We have more efficient electric motors available now. We don’t need to be doing all of our winter heating with coal, oil, natural gas, or propane. We have electric heat pumps available now. We can save our fossil fuels for the very coldest weather. When we have options like these, of putting less heat-trapping/atmosphere-warming carbon dioxide and methane into our air, we should grab these opportunities.

Weather on Earth is like stirring the soup pot. It distributes the heat. Like the soup for lunch the rule for Earth is the same. The soup pot gives off heat, but if there is more heat into the pot than it radiates/gives out, the soup gets warmer. Earth radiates heat out into space, but if there is more heat in, than heat out, no matter how much the weather stirs the atmosphere, the average temperature keeps rising. And it will keep rising as long as the heat in (sunlight) is greater than heat out (into space). The effects are predictable and obvious: more drought, forest fires, rain with flooding, crop damage and personal financial hardship. The costs are very high.

The answer is for everyone on this planet to do their small part. To do what we can. Drive a little less, save money on gas, even if it is too cheap.

George Einar Bussey

Town of White River