Should We Pretend Gas Still Costs $4 a Gallon?

By: Christopher Forestieri

Weather you drive a car or not, lower gas prices are good news. The cost of the many goods that crisscross the country each day are impacted. Airplane fares are dropping and price tags begin to look normal again as overhead costs lower. But, as the price of a gallon of gasoline drops nearly $1.50 from where it was this summer, I can’t help but consider the negatives.

Surely, a lack of demand is responsible on some level. Just months ago, it seemed the Shell station down the street from me had to hire someone just to change the numbers on its sign as the price edged toward $4.00.

With those of us who are lucky enough to have a job struggling to pay bills and buy food, driving suddenly turned from a necessity to a luxury, something we learned to live without, or at least leaned to cut back on.

Around Washington, D.C., metro ridership reached an all time high and traffic, though still the burden we have come to know, was noticeably reduced.

According to the Associated Press, “In the month after gas prices peaked at $4.11 per gallon, Americans drove 5.6 percent less, or 15 billion fewer miles, in August 2008 compared with August 2007 — the biggest single monthly decline since the data was first collected regularly in 1942.”

The oil industry, like other industries, despite record profits, sought to mitigate the effects of a tanking stock market and lowering demand. OPEC drastically reduced oil exports, cutting oil production by 1.5 million barrels per day. The idea, ostensibly, was to increase demand by cutting off the supply.

But despite this, Americans have continued to drive less. It is still too early to know if this trend will continue. But, if it does, we have a chance to flip the tables in a sense.

Sure, we could fall into the trap of the oil industry and react to lower gas prices by retuning to driving excessively and watch the price of oil rise as Americans fight over a reduced supply.

Or, we could learn from the last year.

The first step towards a viable alternative to oil is to stop using oil. But in the meantime, people need to get to work, buy food and survive in a world where petroleum affects us and virtually everything we use. If we can sacrifice excess and continue to try and reduce our petroleum consumption, we will not only send a message that oil is on the way out, but we can keep the price low until we reach the finish line.