Sometimes we all need a small, but forceful, kick in the butt to get moving.
Do you think that the constantly increasing gas prices will provide that kick?
It is time for me to be a negative Nelly: It is not enough. Gas prices are still too low to shock enough people into changing how they live.
I still see cars parked and idling.
I wrote this when the price of gasoline was around $3.20. Prices have since hit over $4 per gallon and the effect was amazing. Prices began to drop as every 24/7 talking head was blabbering about how high was the price going to go. Something happened on the way to the store. People stopped driving so much. Billions of miles have not been driven in the US. 9.6 BILLION miles have not been driven in May. So how much gas did we not buy? At 20 mpg, that becomes 480 million gallons of gas, or $1.92 billion not spent on gas.
Sounds like a lot.
Unfortunately we use 868 million gallons of gasoline a day. So what does that mean? It is as if we all stopped driving for half a day in the month. Not very much. Not enough to really make an environmental difference.
But the good news is that as a habit, driving less, is an easy one to pick up. We have shown that to be true. And we have all probably done things to improve our own miles per gallon. I know I find it very easy to not jack rabbit start, to turn my car off at the drive through ATM. I can even plan my errands so that I can get everything done in one trip. Not only does that save gas and money, but it saves my time because I am not going out to the grocery store twice a day or even every other day.
Keep it up. And prices that have dropped to around $3.60 will continue to drop. And if we continue to conserve by driving less and smarter, it will continue to drop.
