Do any of you feel the same way?
Few weeks ago, over $4.00.
Last week, $3.77.
Yesterday, $3.55.
My mom said it’s supposed to go down to $3.41 soon.
I feel like this is the gov’t.’s way of giving me blood money. My heart sinks everytime I see the prices go down. The lower we fall, I know the more we’re going to pay for it later. It’s gonna hit us in the gut & I’m afraid some of us won’t be able to rise back up.
I knew this would happen. I wanted to blog about this on July 14th. The day Bush overturned that ban on offshore drilling, I felt punched in the stomach. I just felt so sick to my stomach. Like seriously nauseous. I just hoped that we’ve elected a Congress smart enough to not make his executive order come to fruition.
The very next day, the price of oil per barrel dropped. It’s been dropping since. I know it’s only dropping cause ppl think that we’re gonna be drowning in all the crude oil our lil hearts can take real soon. But that ain’t happenin, Charlie.
What’s gonna happen when ppl realize that this isn’t the solution? It’s just gonna skyrocket way past what we thought was high before. The truth is, this country’s been spoiled as far as gas prices go for decades now. If ppl think they can’t afford gas now, they’re gonna be in for a rude awakening when it hits over $8.00 a gallon. That’s what I think will happen when ppl realize that offshore drilling’s not the end-all to this prob.
Please don’t let this congress let us down.
Here’s the long & short of it (mostly long, cause c’mon, you know I ramble):
– if (if) there’s oil to be found, it will be decades (decades) before we actually got that oil & the price drop from it would be minimal. It would come out to a 2¢ drop, 20 years from now.
– 80% of US produced oil (from US reserves) is from 4 states: LA, TX, AK, & CA. If we wanted to find more, our best best would be the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
– Um… do you know what “National Wildlife Refuge” even means? It means, you told those animals that you weren’t going to destroy their home for your own evil means.
– If they spent a decade looking/finding/drilling for oil, there’s only realistically a year’s worth up there. You’re gonna destroy the sanctuary for that? Really? Really?
– It is very (very) likely that any oil drilled from ANWR will never be sold in the US. It will be sold off to the highest International bidder (most likely China). (C’mon, ppl, didja forget we’re a capitalist society?)
– Currently, we have 500 oil spills in Alaska every year. Yeah, they don’t exactly advertise that. You don’t think that’s gonna decrease when they have more new drilling monstrosities?
– Seismic testing to locate oil creates decibel levels of 260 – twice as loud as an ambulance – underwater. Exposure to these levels of noise underwater can cause disorientation, brain hemorrhaging, or even beaching for whales and dolphins. Only last week over 100 melon-head whales beached off of Madagascar close to where ExxonMobil was conducting seismic testing. (6/19/2008, from Greenpeace website)
Here’s a video of a guy who spent 3 months hiking across Alaska, & spent a LOT of time in the ANWR (it’s 3½ mins ppl):
What we need is an alternate solution. My main concern is that we will lose track of what’s imp: trying to develop alternative renewable energies.
Like this Pickens Plan that this guy T. Boone has.
Here be the plan:
(click pic to go to site)
Sweet Sunshower 
well, unfortunately petroleum is used in far more places and industries than one imagines. This is where anything plastic comes from. Just going wind power won’t solve anything but standard household lighting issues. Research has to be forged into things like polylactic acids and renewable forms of plastic derivatives.
Go do some homework on coal in the U.S. and it’s new methods on producing clean energy. It will shock you. Mark my words, that will be the next step in our resource findings.
I knew for sure you’d have a comment on this! Yeah, I’m not saying strictly wind power. I’m just saying that we need to develop ways to have sustainable energies.
I’m totally open to learning more about any alternatives. Bring ’em on!
If you have links, you can leave them in the comments. I’m happy to click on em.
burning coal is responsible for smog, toxins in the air, global warming and millions of tons of carbon dioxide which is responsible for global warming. Clean coal is better, but i haven’t researched it as much yet. We’ll see where that takes things.
We just ran a story in the august issue of my magazine on how algae is replacing ethanol…thank God because ethanol was one extremely environmentally detrimental “alternative fuel solution”. Once the magazine is shipped I’ll get you a copy of the story. i can’t release it until it’s in the public’s hands for competitor’s purposes. can’t have them stealing our stories. 😉 interesting and surprisingly promising though!
yours in greenpeace,
steph
I almost 100% agree with you regarding the cost of gas and the future. And I’m extremely concerned at the lack of counter-argument to Bush’s proposal to begin off-shore drilling and tapping into the ANWR! How can we (Americans) be so complacent abou this? How can the majority of our population be so complacent and not encourage the younger generations to do something other than whine? (I’m referencing the ultimate American protest generation called the “Baby Boomers”) The thing is this: people are thinking so small! Oh, it hurts so much at the pump – they whine – yeah, well, people (not you the pump whiners) do you realize that oil is petroleum (sp)and that petrol is the base ingredient for every type of plastic commonly used in the marketplace (packaging, medical supplies, cars, home decor, etc…). So, we need to rethink everything we do and how we do it to try to lessen our overall human imprint on the world and I think it’s going to require multiple types of alternate energy and multiple ways to consider what sacrifices we’re willing to make regarding marketplace items which require petrol to manufacture/produce. And we have to consider ways to “go back” and maybe return to some previously used methods (eg glass food storage vs. plastic) or copying the success of other countries (eg high speed rail, accessible to many individuals to combat road crowding and emissions). Thanks for this post!
I LOVE glass storage (& glass for anything over plastic for food).
We've been hearing about these links b/t plastic food containers & cancer.
But mainly, it comes down to my laziness: Glass is just easier to clean than plastic.
Suddenly $3.52 a gallon looks good. Two years from now, $5 a gallon will look good. We can only take so much.
What really pisses me off is that I work two jobs so I have money to go out and party with, but no one else does. Not fair!!