jds669

Not only should there be a higher gas tax (you can exclude public transportation and vehicles use to produce or transport goods) to be used for alternative transportation infrastructure, we should stop subsidizing "free" parking. You want to drive 2 miles to buy a gallon of milk, pay for your own parking, why should someone else?

wunderkind

Gas price increase will impact more than just motor vehicle users. It will impact goods and services. Therefore I do not want to see gas price increase.
Increase in gas price <> people will cycle. Remember the 70s oil crisis? Was there a boom in cycling let? Cars became more efficient, travelling across the US continental was reduced. People adapt. I would hate to pay $$$ for groceries to day to day household items.

Also I hate to see OPEC getting even more rich!

531phile 

Last time we had higher gas prices a few years ago, we also had an increase in a lot of other stuff too like groceries. I don't have a car but I would mind the higher gas prices. It would also not be good for the economy for most working class people.

mnemia

Some, but not all of it, was.

I'm not trying to come across as anti-trade, nor am I very extreme about buying locally. On the contrary, I think that international trade makes a lot of sense in many cases. Obviously, not every nation is going to have equal access to every resource, whether that's labor, education, raw materials, or energy. So everyone benefits, in theory, when trade takes place. The problem with oil as a component of our trade deficit is that it's so huge, and that we're so completely dependent on it. That puts our nation at the mercy of forces outside our control to an undesirable extent. If we suddenly couldn't ship bicycle parts from Asia anymore, it wouldn't be the end of the world: we would just start making bicycles in the U.S. again, albeit probably for a bit higher price since we don't have the cheap workforce and so on. But with oil, it's a lot harder to switch over to a domestic industry, because the need for it is so huge. And the scope of the potential impact is also enormous since it touches so many different parts of the economy. If our source of Asian bicycles were cut off, the economic impact would be relatively minimal. If our source of oil were cut off, the economic impact would be apocalyptic. So, since it's such a high risk to our national economic security, it should be addressed strongly.

Seattle Forrest

Maybe ... but most of the 80 % of the 300+ million Americans who say they "have no choice" and "need" to drive, aren't being honest with themselves. Most people who say this aren't Stephen Hawking; they made a choice to live 35 miles from work, etc. I can understand how living far, far from everywhere you need to be makes using a car very convenient, but I don't think it's forthright to call that "having no choice."

truman

As a consumer, yeah, I hate digging deeper for gas.

Holistically, artificially low prices aren't sustainable in the long term and I'd rather see people do more with less gas.

CliftonGK1

Even if the bike was made here, do any companies aside from True Temper and KVA actually manufacture tubing in the US? Reynolds is a British company, Columbus and Dedacciai are Italian, Ishiwata is/was Japanese (they still around?)... What are some others?

ItsJustMe

I actually like to see them in a selfish way, but at the same time, I have lots of family that live in rural areas, 10 to 15 miles from the nearest store, and they're living on almost no income because the auto industry has pulled out of the area and there are no jobs.

groovestew

America's recent history shows that if the source of their oil is even threatened, they respond in force.

mnemia

Unfortunately, the truth is that it doesn't matter what we "want" gas prices to do. They will do what they do regardless of what we want. So the best we can do is be prepared for large changes. Too many of us aren't.

mnemia

Yes, and how well did that work out? Not very well...

Military might depends both directly and indirectly on oil. You can build all the fancy fighter jets you want, but they'll sit on the ground rusting if you don't have oil. And you can't even build them if your economy is worthless because you don't have adequate access to energy.

groovestew

I would say that the liberation of Kuwait was a resounding success, insofar as access to oil is concerned. Sure, there are other ongoing conflicts, but the oil is still flowing.

I'm also not convinced that oil is going to suddenly disappear. There's lots and lots of oil in Alberta (where I live, but as an aside, President Obama doesn't want it because it's not environmentally friendly oil), and when the oil starts drying up in Alberta, companies will move east through Saskatchewan and Manitoba where there is still an abundant supply. Eventually, oil production will start to slow down, and we will adapt. The world population didn't grow to 6.5 billion people without humankind's ability to adapt. And we won't adapt by everyone suddenly riding bicycles, we'll adapt by finding new ways to bottle energy to power our automobiles (or hovercars by then).

jds669

A friend of my suggests we go to gas rationing like during WWII. Every licensed driver is allotted "X" amount of gas per month. Those that "choose" not to drive as much can then sell their excess ration tickets for a tidy profit.

mihlbach

You are missing the point. Oil is not going to suddenly disappear. There is a lot of oil let. But what remains will gradually require more and more energy (and money) to extract. Oil will be around a long time, but it will be costly and will not flow at a fast enough rate to sustain the global economy as we know it. Its like squeezing a sponge...at first the water runs out of the sponge. Squeeze it and the water really begins to flow. But eventually you have to use all of your strength to get a few drops...thats where we are headed now. Eventually no amount of squeezing will produce any more water even though there is still water in the sponge. When a barrel of oil (or equivalent energy) is required to extract a barrel of oil it will effectively be gone.

tjspiel

Actually there was a huge bike boom in the 70's. Don't know how much was due to gas prices though. I think the boom was more recreational.

There is a bright side to higher gas prices driving up prices of commodities. It makes producing locally more profitable. This could bring some production back into the States which in the long run is more sustainable from an environmental standpoint. It could also mean more middle class jobs which are sorely lacking.

groovestew

I was chatting with a friend who works for an oil company and talking about carbon credits, and he (jokingly) offered to buy carbon credits from me.

mnemia

The point is that the military "solution" is not going to always work. Everyone in the world wants access to cheap oil, and if it becomes scarce enough, they will fight for it. The Kuwait liberation was indeed a success in that regard, but a lot of powerful countries were united behind that. That won't always be the case, and it wasn't the case with the invasion of Iraq. And of course there are a ton of other negatives associated with waging perpetual war for oil that go beyond just whether it "works", but that goes without saying...

Long term, YES, I agree with you that we will adapt. And I agree that any decline in oil availability will take place gradually over time. But the problem is that it will create huge avoidable problems in the short run. And with the way the financial markets work, a decrease in oil availability doesn't have to be particularly large in order to create a huge spike in the price. I'm worried more about volatility than about the long term trend, since we can adapt if given enough time.

mnemia

That's rather similar to the idea behind cap-and-trade, actually, only the "credits" are based on energy consumption rather than CO2 production, and it operates on an individual level rather than a global scale.

groovestew

People used to say that about the Alberta oilsands, but technology continues to improve. Necessity is the mother of invention; there will always be a way.

mnemia

I don't share that optimism. It's a fact that oil is finite. We can't magically produce more just because we have better extraction technology forever. That will work for a while, but the more you go down that path the more you run into the law of diminishing returns. At some point, alternatives will become a cheaper option (for example, nuclear energy).

tjspiel

Wasn't there a significant spill there?

groovestew

Absolutely. (I'm a Canadian raised by pacifist Mennonites, and while I like to think I have a mind of my own, I'm still a product of my upbringing. Lest anyone thinks I'm pro-war.)

I agree.

groovestew

I didn't intend to imply that I thought oil was infinite. As I said earlier, "we'll adapt by finding new ways to bottle energy to power our automobiles (or hovercars by then)."

jds669

What technology brings is not always an "improvement" and what we adapt "to" isn't always the best in the long haul. But having choices is what makes living in these times nice. Some may like the fact that they can drive to the store in their SUV and but a tomato grown 3000 miles away from a chemically fertilized mega-farm...I still like a tomato that actually taste like a tomato

z90

I am less pessimistic. The economy needs energy, and currently much of the energy we use we get from gasoline and other fossil fuels. But there is a tremendous amount of waste and inefficiency in our current energy systems that also represents an untapped resource (google Amory Lovins and "Negawatts" for some great stuff about efficiency) . Also, it's a mistake to say that it's fossil fuel that we need, when really it's energy that we need. Yes, the cost per unit energy of fossil fuels may continue to escalate, but the cost of renewable energy sources continues to decline. Also, efficiency has become much more important. There may be pain associated if we really are past "Peak Oil", but societies have switched major fuel sources more than once, and continued to advance.

Then again, some giant company may discover a vast undersea oil field. In many ways, I fear that future more.