So It’s Getting Real, Now What?

Published at 19:46 on 8 March 2022

Well, that didn’t take long, did it? The USA is boycotting Russian oil. The obvious conclusion is that this will just make the price of anything made from petroleum go up more.

At this stage it is worth keeping in mind how the US public reacted to the COVID pandemic. How likely are the people who couldn’t unite around wearing masks during a pandemic (to protect themselves and their own families) to unite around making some rather more expensive sacrifices (on the behalf of some other people many thousands of miles away in eastern Europe)? Not very likely, I’d say.

A Democratic president facing rising unpopularity due to rising inflation, in no small part due to rising energy costs. Welcome to the 1970’s. It’s looking more and more like Biden is a latter-day Jimmy Carter.

The one good thing about it all is that gasoline is finally starting to be priced rationally again. (When you hear random people, and not eco-activists, talking about doing things that minimize their carbon footprint, you know gasoline is being priced rationally, i.e. to encourage conservation.)

And yes, I know this is going to cause some folks genuine hardship. Based on personal experience, though, a lot of that is up to personal choices. For openers, it has always struck me how casual most people are about choosing to live in one place, work in another distant from it (with limited or no public transit options), and thereby commit to a lot of fuel consumption.

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