I never thought I would see the day again where gas prices dropped below $2.00 a gallon, especially after summer 2008. And what a relief it is for the old wallet!
Today I gassed up my Honda, and it cost about $13 to fill the tank. I hadn’t filled up for nine days. Now that is some cheap driving!
So I suppose now that gas is so affordable, we all should feel comfortable knowing that even if it does go up a bit from here, it shouldn’t impact us too much, because we were so used to paying from $2.50 - $3.50 a gallon for a long time. And, with OPEC having to cut back production, it must mean that there is a surplus in supply, so the alarms we heard coming from those warning us of an oil shock were probably just a bunch of empty words backed up with fallible statistics, right?
Let’s take a deep examination into why I feel that the scenario I present above is wrong! But I’m going to leave research and statistics out of this one, and just use some casual observations mixed with some logic.
So yes, we are saving money with lower gas prices, and saving in any sense is very important to our households right now and always. And it is affirmative that demand for oil has went down recently, despite the tumbling cost of crude. From all this, it is easy to feel a renewed sense of security – like cheap oil is here to stay.
These notions set in motion the illusion that we can once again rest on our laurels and put a push for renewable energy, and the monetary support that goes along with it, on the back burner.
As a collective society, if we continue to allow this to happen, then the money we save now by not doing anything will pave the way for us to spend an exponential amount later.
We are a society which is overwhelmingly reliant on oil-based resources, so as a result, it is easy to pull the wool over our eyes and not push down on the accelerator pedal toward a transition to alternative energies. Maybe it is because it all seems too hard?
I have touched on my views about this before, but in a nutshell, when challenges are set by humanity, and they have the assembled foundation of people, money, resources, and will behind them, then they are usually achieved. One only needs to look back at history to see examples of this.
Even in these economic straits characteristic of today, if we challenge ourselves, as a societal whole, to build for ourselves a sustainable future, and back it up with logic and a desire to leave the world a better place then we found it, for at the very least the sake of our children and generations to come, then it is most certainly possible.
Achieving success with regards to an ultimatum that is so enormous in task might seem unfathomable, but so too is the consequence that can and will likely result from doing nothing, or too little too late.
The picture of society, hypothetically for instance, in the year 2100, has always conjured up disturbing images in my mind ever since I was about 12-years-old. Just from a curious, and mostly uneducated observation of the world around me at such a young age, I couldn’t imagine how such a world could sustain itself for centuries in the future. It just didn’t seem to make any sense to me how this all could continue, without making drastic changes.
And that was about twenty years ago! Unfortunately, my outlook hasn’t changed much, even after two decades of learning much more about the world, and analyzing its intricacies ad nauseum.
Most of this comes from a perception of the industrial aspect of the world, and the resulting commercialization and industrialization of every resource it can get its hands on. There is so much waste and misappropriation in every aspect of society, that the natural resources of our habitat are being unnecessarily squandered and disposed of. It has become our modern way of life.
So just like species in the natural world that have been displaced, and are now forced to adapt to the new world around them, so must we.
If anything these economic times teaches us, the notion of conservation should take precedence over all others. We must adapt to a new sense of place in the order of things, rather than expecting everything to adapt to us.
Conserving at home, conserving at work, conserving resources, and conserving our energies, through simplification of life in general should be the name of the game. We are living in the perceived abundance of years past, in many cases expecting the state of the world to conform and adjust to us. But that is not generally how things work.
Hence the challenge at hand. We need to look at this economic situation as an opportunity, and seize it in any way we can. As old ways and methods die off, new ones can and will take their place in a 21st century economy. You can bet that there are many entrepreneurs who are gazing through this looking glass, and seeking out their niche with which they can thrive.
And what a better area than one with the most aggregate demand – energy. Unfortunately though, old ingrained beliefs about it all are putting up a very strong barrier to full-scale breakthroughs. Since oil is such a giant industry, it takes a major shift in policy, attitude, and consumer habit to catapult into the forefront those who are putting the aspiration and weight behind the need for an alternative.
So what can comprise a change in these areas and speed up the action?
The adaptation toward a temporary adjustment period and the understanding that if we act now, we can replace the ominous images of the world in century or so with a much more pleasant one that can outlast the age of oil.
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