More chain letter...

[c9]

Another copy of the damned "gas is expensive, boo-hoo" letter today. I do feel for those who have no choice but to own a car and buy gas to work and feed their kids, and so forth. But those aren't the people who own computers, have high-speed internet, and forward chain letters, in my experience. Anyway. This time it was on an actual mailing list -- a GLBT issues mailing list actually, so rather rudely irrelevant content -- and I was able to respond to all guilt-free:

Hi everyone

This chain letter is just a made-up complaint about gas prices, and nothing has actually "been calculated." If you don't buy gas on that day, you'll probably just buy more gas the day before or the day after.

I suggest we all start thinking about the bigger picture: Oil is running out. Many experts agree we have reached what's called "Peak Oil," which means that we've used half the oil on Earth. Why is halfway a problem? Because we're still using more every year -- to the extent that it will ALL be gone in less than 35 years. So you should expect gas prices to keep on going up, not down. Individual gas stations are not screwing you, they're being screwed from above by the basic facts of the industry.

It's a tough cost for many, but higher gas prices do encourage less car driving (less pollution) and more research into better energy replacement (less oil needs). I consider those to be very good things.

More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

Cam

Another list writer replied with this response, which is also nice:

Consider this:

If gasoline prices remain high, people will be that much more likely
to purchase fuel efficient vehicles, to plan their car trips more
efficiently, to car-pool, and where possible to use public
transportation or to walk or bike. This will decrease the emission
of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Both our ozone layer and
our non-renewable supplies of petroleum will last longer. The
overall health of the population will be improved due to cleaner air
and more exercise. We won't have to pay as much in taxes for road
maintenance because fewer vehicles on the roads will mean less wear
and tear. The rates of death and injury due to automobile accidents
will drop as well.

I could go on and on, but I think by now you see my point!

Feel free to send this on to anyone who's sent you the message re: gas prices.

I hope this thing dies a quick death, even though it seems unlikely.

Comments

[miket61.livejournal.com]

I think Snopes.com said the original gas-out letter was from 1994.

Hurricane Katrina has caused gas prices in Alabama to go up sixty cents a gallon (19 cents a litre CDN) in one day. This, of course, is price gouging.

The problem we have in Atlanta is that public transit has a stigma - you have to be dirty, nasty, probably black, and prone to peeing in corners to want to ride the subway. So businesses are relocating to Alpharetta, which is twenty miles north of town and fifteen miles north of the end of the train line. My office was seven minutes away on back roads when I started there - now that they've moved, it's half an hour on a good day, an hour and a half on a bad one.

[c9.livejournal.com]

Agreed, and that's not just Atlanta, that's North America. The prevailing attitude outside of NYC, and downtown TO, is that public transit is for the poor smelly people. Until that changes, we're just setting ourselves up worse and worse.

[miket61.livejournal.com]

When I go to NYC, or Toronto, or Chicago, I never rent a car. My last experience on NYC's subways was not pleasant - if you translated the Charlie-Brown's-Teacher voice on the P.A. system, you'd discover that the train entering the station wasn't actually a local but an express, whose next stop would be Rutland, Vermont...

I can walk to a train station, but work is in the other direction. If I need to do something in town after work, I just stay in the car and go past my exit.

[primary-suspect.livejournal.com]

Not just Alabama either, this morning in Ottawa it was $1.19/litre. I did hear that GW is opening up the US fuel reserves which dropped the prices of oil, but who knows if it will change the gas prices at the pumps.

[miket61.livejournal.com]

No one noticed that Hurricane Ivan caused similar problems last year. Of course, with the price of oil being in the forefront, the opportunities to gouge made a relatively minor inconvenience into a miserable chaotic mess.

[primary-suspect.livejournal.com]

Yeah. By the end of the day yesterday, gas was back down to $1.02/litre but today it was back up to $126.9 which is insane! You can't tell me that anything that just happened already affected the gas in the pumps right now.