I Am Having GAS Pains!
Tuesday, December 4th, 2007
First…I am JUST ABOUT FINISHED this book. YAHOO! But I am still internet-less from 9-5 on weekdays. Be assured, I *will* be reading and responding to comments after 5. So please don’t let me down and have me get online all excited at 5:01, only to find I scared everyone away…lolol!
That said…
You know, we never get too serious here on Plotmonkeys. With good reason–the four of us are easygoing, laid back people who just don’t want the drama. But I have reached the point where I just have to speak out about something.
I am freaking tired of paying forty-five bucks to fill up my gas tank, when it cost me twenty bucks four years ago when I got the car.
Now, I do not have the solution to the world’s energy crisis. But I can’t help thinking that if I could drive a car that got 60 miles to the gallon TWENTY-TWO years ago, why the heck can’t I find one now? My 1985 Honda Civic CRX (which I adored) routinely got 60 mpg long before the word “hybrid” referred to anything other than a cross-bred flower. (IE: It was a standard fuel engine.)
Sixty. Miles. To. The. Gallon.
Now car dealers do backflips to get people excited about cars that get thirty.
Why is that?
Frankly, I think we’ve all been screwed over. Certain financial interests have not wanted us to find an alternative to expensive fossil fuels, nor have they wanted to work to make those fuels more efficient. Otherwise, after twenty-two years of serious research and development, we’d have cars getting 100 miles per hour, rather than crowing about the ones that get 30. Or cars that ran on something else altogether! (I vote for all the used deep fry oil from McDonald’s.)
I would love to replace one of our cars, but with the new house, have to put it off for a while. But you can bet when we do, fuel efficiency will play a huge part in the decision. Bruce has a fantasy about driving a Jeep like he used to when we were first dating. But at 14 mpg? Uh, no. That ain’t happening, and he’s the first one to say so.
If more people bought with that as their number one criteria–rather than how bad-ass the latest monstrous 10mpg SUV looks–the carmakers might actually think they could make a real profit on energy efficient vehicles. And maybe they’d actually decide to try to make them even more efficient!
But, to be honest, it is not the extra dollars coming directly out of my pocket that most upsets me. It’s the state of the world we live in now and the political helplessness our reliance on a single commodity has caused us as a nation.
I can’t help imagining what the political situation of this world might look like today if somebody, somewhere along the way, had had the foresight to say, “You know, maybe it’s not in our country’s best interest to be completely at the mercy of other nations who stand for everything we do not, just because they control most of the planet’s supply of a single product that we can’t force ourselves to give up.”
But I digress.
Now, we think we’ve got it bad…do you know what a gallon of gas costs in Europe? Roughly eight bucks.
Know what it costs in Iran? Roughly 44 cents.
Logical? Hell no. Why do we allow it? Because the west has no other choice. Supply and demand, baby. They supply it, we demand it, and we’re f’d.
Now, this rant isn’t entirely just a rant. I might not have an answer to the problem, but I have a few minor ways that I and my family are trying to do our part to change things.
I don’t like the quality of the light in those new twisty, fluorescent light bulbs, but every lamp in my new house has one. And if you leave the room, even if just for a few minutes, the light goes OFF. (Wow, that’s a hard one to drill into kids’ heads!) It’s not gas out of a pump…but electricity still comes from fuel.
Small kitchen appliances I seldom use but keep plugged in on the counter? They’re drawing current–just a little bit, but they are drawing it. I now unplug em.
It’s getting cold now…but the thermostat is set five degrees lower than it was last winter. We wear sweaters. We use quilts. I curl up next to cutie-pups during the day when I write–she’s so warm and cuddly. (And next to Bruce during the night…he’s warm and cuddly, too…)
When oldest daughter is away at college, and the downstairs where her room & the rec room are located isn’t being used on a daily basis, the vents get closed and the basement door is shut. Why heat one-third of the house that we’re not using?
Lots of errands pop up–every single day. Instead of doing them as they arise, they get bunched. Got a doctor’s appointment? Then that’s the day I also hit the bank, the grocery store, Wal Mart and the gas station. I do not make five trips. (Unless I run out of Diet Coke. For that, I’ll make the trip to the closest store.)
Online shopping for the holidays is not just a time-saving convenience to me this year. It also saves me the gas it would take to drive the 30 miles to the nearest mall.
My hubby is going to start car-pooling with my sister 2-3 days a week, despite having slightly different work schedules. It’s a little inconvenient…it’s also something.
Maybe if everyone did a few little somethings they’re not doing now, that demand could start to shrink. The supply might just perhaps go up. The teeter-totter might move in the opposite direction.
And if the money isn’t rolling in the way it used to, maybe somebody, somewhere, will stop worrying about lining their own oily corporate pockets and start researching–working hard to make a real change for the good of our country and our children.
End of speech. Feel free to throw tomatoes. Better yet, how about throwing some energy saving tips of your own? I’d really like to hear them!
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REMINDER: We’re asking YOU to help the Plotmonkeys give a happy holiday to some lonely American soldiers!
From now until December 7, the Plotmonkeys–Janelle Denison, Leslie Kelly, Julie Elizabeth Leto and Carly Phillips–are sponsoring a special contest. Just donate to a charity sending care packages to our troops overseas, and you’re eligible to win a $100 gift card to do your own holiday shopping!
All the details can be found here: THE SEASON FOR GIVING
