"Love" high oil prices

A shocking realization that habits need to change. You felt it at the gasoline pumps. Get used to the pain in your pocketbook. Oil prices, which skyrocketed from $18 to nearly $65 a barrel in four years, are not likely to get much lower in the long run. But, in time, you may learn to love the results of the pain, however paradoxical that seems. If there is a glimmer of light in this petroleum gloom, it's the potential for high oil prices to spur individual and collective initiatives to reduce the nation's immense thirst for oil.

Why are prices so high? It's Economics 101. Oil is a freely traded commodity, subject to the law of supply and demand. The global market, not the oil industry, sets the price. Blame the mushrooming industrial growth of China and, to a lesser extent, India. Blame yourself if you bought a big SUV with an 11-miles per gallon thirst and moved into a McMansion with 15 rooms to heat. Or invest in oil stocks.

But what can I do? Quite a lot. Trade in that big SUV for a smaller one. Move closer to your job. Don't buy a bigger house than you need. Use public transport if you can. Individually, all that seems like small potatoes. Collectively, it's huge. It will be hard to reverse course. But we must stop fooling ourselves. High oil prices may well be the shock we need to change course.

(2005-11-07 13:26:42 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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