Oil addiction

As a fairly healthy 20-year-old, I never really thought I would have to worry about having a heart attack for at least another 30 years or so. But last week, when I crossed 10th Street and saw “$3.15” emblazoned across the sign at the Citgo, I almost had a massive coronary.\nI can still remember how shocked everyone was when gas hit (gasp!) $2. In fact – and I know this makes me sound like a geezer – I can remember back in the day when it cost half of what it does now. And while no one seems to be getting any richer, there seems to be no limit as to how high gas prices will climb.\nNow here’s the irony of the situation. As a semi-informed environmentalist, I realize that cars are not good for the planet, to say the very least. When I first learned about global warming and the environmental degradation caused by oil use, I saw the solution to the problem as nothing less than obvious. If people were driving too much, then why didn’t the government just tax gas to oblivion? Simple, right?\nNeedless to say, this was long before I got my license. Now, I am somewhat embarrassed to find that I have become part of the problem. No matter what ridiculous new high gas prices rise to, I just can’t seem to kick my driving habit. Sure, I walk when I can, but there are times when I need to get across town fast, and the buses around here aren’t exactly built for speed. Sometimes I need my trunk space to carry things. For instance, ironically enough, I have to use my car to get the loads of plastic and paper from my apartment to the recycling center. And, honestly, I’m not too keen on making the 450-mile long trip home by bike.\nNor has the rest of the country been able to shake its automotive addiction. Our cities have grown outward, and no matter how high gas prices get, we will always need a way to make the commute to jobs in the suburbs or to haul our massive cargo of groceries home from Kroger.\nWe can’t change the way our country was built, and even efforts at switching to mixed-use development and public transportation might not come to fruition before we’ve done irreparable damage. Fighting for a massive federal tax disincentive will not be enough without a sensible, sustainable alternative to oil. \nThe best thing that we can do now in the face of global warming and our addiction to a quickly disappearing commodity is to demand that our politicians, particularly whoever wins the White House next November, make investing some serious cash in the research and development of electric and hydrogen-fueled transportation a top priority.\nUnless we break our addiction now, all we have to look forward to are the seriously frightening consequences of global warming (tropical diseases and droughts, anyone?), a degraded landscape and more international conflicts. And once our reserves run dry, we’ll wish we had done more while we had the chance.