As always, gas prices are on the rise. Gas is slowly approaching the three dollar mark. It sucks, but it’s also a good thing in a way. We all hate emptying our wallets to fill up at the pump, but it’s still cheaper in the United States than it is in other countries. In European countries, they pay more (or at least as much) per liter than we do per gallon. Higher prices are good in that it creates less demand for gas-guzzling, heavily-polluting vehicles, and also makes people conserve a little. God forbid we should ever walk anywhere. There is some concern that oil companies aren’t running 100 percent production and that the government should take measures to make them do so.
Oil refineries may not be running at full capacity, but that will help conserve the limited supply of oil there is. It’s not as if that additional gasoline would be stored as an emergency stock. It would be refined, sold and burned with the rest of the oil. That also gives a little breathing room to the refinery workers. If they are at full capacity, then they are rushed to get things done and mistakes will be made. Mistakes around heavy machinery tend to cause accidents, so it’s safer for the workers.
There aren’t that many oil companies, which is certainly a bad thing. They no doubt collaborate somewhat to make it very near a monopoly/trust, so it would be good to establish a few more companies. The trouble is, they would be drowned out by the sheer size of the current companies. If there were a few more companies, then the market would become more competitive, so prices would be lowered.
A boycott would force them to lower prices, but it’s an impossible maneuver because there are so very few people who could go even one day without using gas. A minimal-use movement could be effective, but still difficult to organize. The answer to lowering gas prices is not a price ceiling on gas or maximizing oil production.
The best we can do is limit unnecessary driving and begin walking when we can. Mississippi is statistically one of the fattest, poorest and dumbest states, so we can at least work on correcting two of those problems by getting a little exercise and leaving our cars parked occasionally.