Riding Out The Storm

A Sacramento area cameraman, looking for a 2.5 second sound bite for the evening news, might just catch me in passing the several gasoline stations along my route on Franklin Blvd. If I were to be interviewed I'd end up on the cutting room floor because I'm not doing it to avoid the $4 gas. Well...I am, but really, I've been riding underneath $1.70 gas, too. My guess is he'd simply show my picture in passing, edit out the part where I actually say anything (like gasoline would have to be $7 a gallon to make bicycling cost effective), and simply state that "there goes another brave person weathering out this high price storm on his bicycle."

The terminology on the NBC News the other night, showing a guy riding his bike in Denver, was exactly that; he's "riding out the high price storm."

Like riding a bike is only valid for as long as a storm passes -- a temporary condition like bad weather.

Perhaps high prices (if you really call $4 high...really?) are temporary. But to conclude that riding it out on a bicycle, "just waiting for prices to go down," is so damn shortsighted.

Whatever happened to global warming, huh? Suspended, as soon as we have to pay over $3.87 a gallon. Not that I'm a particular fan of global warming (and neither am I a skeptic), but doesn't a reduction in the burning of fossil fuels improve the situation? Say 100%? The only way to prevent it would be to reduce burning them. But that discussion is apparently only valid at $3.00 or below.

What do you suppose will happen if prices remain at $4? There's a lot to consider why they might -- We've devalued our dollar to bail out non-productive segments of our FIRE economy; not gonna be rising anytime soon methinks. We've lobbed a few hundred cruise missiles into a nation responsible for 2% of the world's production but we aren't willing to support regime change, so we're perpetuating the shut-in of Libyan oil supply. There's always been Middle East tension, jeez! What, a coupla hundred Syrian protester deaths are spooking the market this time? They're spooked all the time!

I heard again this evening another Republican congressman's intention to pursue domestic production in the hinterlands...say, even farther out in the gulf, or ANWR. Sean Hannity loves to speak of the 18 Saudi Arabia's worth of shale oil we have underneath North Dakota. Perhaps, yes, we do. But to extract out a barrel's worth would cost $200 each...and if you're bitching about $4 gas now...and every one of these cretins has not yet demonstrated any knowledge that U.S. production peaked in 1971 and has decreased every year, every year, since, while U.S. imports have increased every year, every year, since. To raise domestic production is heartfelt indeed, but completely ignorant of the realities of a finite, non-renewable, declining domestic supply.