Rising fuel prices — all bad?

So, with gas approaching $4 a gallon, why are the vast majority of us still zooming along above the speed limit? Or letting our parked vehicles idle — getting 0 mpg — as we go into convenience stores? Increased fuel prices are as sure as death and taxes. Oh, there’ll be a few brief lulls along the way. But, as respected geologists have stated, the ever-increasing world demand placed on the finite resources of oil will inevitably lead to peak oil — the point at which the maximum rate of global oil production is reached, followed by a terminal decline. This can mean that we’ll be faced with dramatically higher oil prices in the next few years.


Everyone I talk with rues the rise of fuel prices. After all, the continued increased costs of gasoline, heating fuel, food, resulting layoffs, etc. will adversely impact most folks including me, the middle class and the poor alike. But is this a totally bad thing? The lessening of our century-long oil addiction can also be seen as a self-correction that, in the long run, will lead to a series of benefits for all of us:

Saving money through conservation measures such as switching to compact fluorescent bulbs and driving slower. As most of us will remember, the 55 mph limit of the ’70s and ’80s saved thousands of lives.

Burlington Free Press