I am sick and tired of hearing about gas prices being high. It's upsetting, it's distressing and it's old news. Every commercial, for all sorts of random products - doesn't matter whether it's a new cell phone, a GPS device, even a chain grocery store - gas prices are somehow worked into the advertising.
But there's news that gives Americans a reason to be excited again. An analyst for CBS Chicago says gas prices "could go to $3.50 a gallon by Labor Day."
Could.
It's very sad when just the thought of cheap gas prices is worthy of a stand-alone article, luring the American public into thinking they are getting relief at the pump.
Part of the reason for the drop in fuel prices, according to the analysis, is the decrease in demand for fuel. Prices spiked during the summer, and a downturn in excessive driving has pushed down consumption.
While people are aching at the pump, demanding lower fuel prices, companies are starting to look into long-term solutions to a problem people want fixed now. Offshore drilling, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, wind farms and solar power are all ideas, but they are long-term solutions to immediate problems. More importantly, they treat the symptoms instead of addressing the disease.
While politicians and pundits say that America needs to be less dependent on foreign oil, the truth is, we need to be less dependent on oil. The spike in investing and development of new means of energy opens the door of possibility, a chance to change how we consume energy. Even the famously conservative spearhead of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, T. Boone Pickens, a man who made his wealth on oil, is looking into alternative fuel sources. Part of the reason why alternative fuel sources are getting attention is because of how obvious the results are.
Environmentalists pushed for alternative fuel sources in the wake of global warming awareness, but it failed as many people, for some incomprehensible reason, decided to turn it into a political argument rather than an environmental one.
However, unlike the long-term goals of addressing global warming, which may take decades or centuries to reverse, gas prices and consumption can shift in a few years if done correctly. But the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries doesn't want to see Americans lessen their consumption of oil. If the consumption decreases, gas could drop more than what analysts may predict, and in turn allow Americans to return to the pump once again as they so gleefully did at the beginning of the decade.
That's the problem though. A freefall in the price of gas would only set back the expansion of alternative fuel sources. As soon as the price of gas returns to its previous - or in this case, semi-previous - state, sales of SUVs will once again jump and needless driving and speeding will return back to normal, and nobody will have learned anything from the spike in gas prices.
But that would be insanely greedy, considering that this floundering economy's general cost of living has increased, in large part, as a result of the current price of gas. Not that prices should spike even more, but when the cost does go down, reverting back to our previously comatose state of consumption will not be a viable action - we need to change the way people live.
If there is any hope, the remnants of excessive consumption - vehicles which get less than 15 miles per gallon - will disappear and stay gone even when prices return to "normal."
If gas prices do return to $3.50 a gallon as the analyst predicts, people need to at least rethink consumption on a long-term, not short-term, basis. Our rate of consumption needs more than a Band-Aid, it needs a full medical evaluation.
-John P. Gamboa is a journalism senior and a staff columnist.
-This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec. Send e-mail to letters@thedailyaztec.com. Anonymous letters will not be printed - include your full name, major and year in school.
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