The opportunity created by crisis
Let’s forget for a moment that Apple has just released their new and improved iPhone and that Hillary’s campaign is no more and let’s focus instead on the rising price of fuel. As of late Monday night, the big story on all of the major news websites is that the price of gas has just inched over the 4 dollars per gallon mark (not sure where they have been – in D.C., where I live, my local gas station was charging me that benchmark price well over a week ago).Now this is indeed big news. If you drive, you are definitely feeling the pain at the pump. But as you may already know, oil has snaked its way into many parts of our lives, so stand by for what could be a dramatic decrease in your purchasing power. If you wear clothes (and I imagine that most of us do) then you may notice a rise in the cost of your synthetic attire; if you use household paint, expect a jump in the price at your local Home Depot or Lowes; and if you color your hair, well…
Even food will become more expensive, due to the price of fertilizer and the cost of transporting products to the market.
*sigh*
Just as it has taken a series of national challenges to force us to get serious about interagency reform, the rising price of oil is going to act as a forcing function – making our nation come to terms with a looming energy crisis. One can expect some of the energy topics of old being recycled as a distressed public pressures lawmakers and corporations alike to find solutions. Will we make peace with the thought of nuclear energy? Will we increase our refining capacity? Will solar power be integrated into new construction? Will mass transit become the norm and not the exception? And will we decide to drill in locations that are currently off-limits?
But further, maybe the rise in the price of oil/gas will take us away from known solutions and drive us toward the excitable unknowns. And in that way, maybe this is a good thing, in that it may drive us to do what we should have done during the fuel crisis of 1973 (or in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks) and develop alternative fuel sources that will enable our nation to decrease its dependency on oil. A citizenry and military under great fuel-related pressure might provide a needed catalyst for a private-public partnership between industry and our government that is bent on creative solutions to our current resource problems.
Now only if we could find solutions absent a crisis or disaster…
Roger Carstens is a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He is a former Army Special Forces officer.
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Absolutely the right questions to be asking (though we ought to have been asking them about twenty years ago). Here’s the big one, to my mind: What’s going to change the political incentive structure so that the next President and Congress can act to prevent another irresponsible energy policy as occurred post-1973? In other words, if Saudi Arabia boosts production to reduce price (as they’ve recently suggested some willingness to do) or if OPEC perceives a long term threat to its choke hold on world energy thanks to serious and sustained alternative fuels research, what’s to stop it from simply flooding the market and reducing price–albeit temporarily, but long enough to undo any alternative fuels policies around the world? The obvious, but politically impossible (it seems), answer is a TAX. Hence the conundrum.
Comment on June 10, 2008 @ 6:02 am
Roger, the pain is nowhere near European levels. The outcry at $4 pales into insignificance when you think that the cost per gallon at the pump in the UK is now over $9.50 and shortly expected to break through $10. If we Europeans pay this much and have not yet made a headlong drive for alternate fuel sources are you sure that $4 is the threshold in the US or perhaps there is still some slack to go before someone presses the panic button?
Comment on June 10, 2008 @ 9:53 am
Michael G. The European comparison is bogus. The high gas prices in Europe don’t have the same effect on their society as they do on ours. They have public transportation systems light years ahead of ours. They have cultures that are used to walking and bicycling. They don’t need to drive ten miles to go to the grocery store or pick up a light bulb. I agree that we shouldn’t get overly stressed about the high gas prices. But, I also agree with Roger that it is high time that the government launch and fund a “Manhattan” style alternative energy program, and that the energy companies start actively pursuing alternative energy sources rather than just playing lip service to it. We as the voting public should demand more of our leaders in both the public and private sector. In light of the current oil crisis, it is unbelievable that we, the voting public, would stand by while a sitting Vice President, who made his millions off of oil, sits behind closed doors and discusses energy “policy” with the very people who made him rich. We deserve better from our leaders and we should not be afraid to demand better of them either.
Comment on June 10, 2008 @ 12:22 pm
Lou, you have a good point, and the Europeans don’t use gas on the same scale as we do, which brings me to Matt’s comment about the questions we should have been asking ourselves twenty years ago.
In my mind this crisis is brought about in large part by urban sprawl. Lou, you are absolutely right that the vast majority of Europeans don’t drive ten miles to go to the grocery store, as I managed to put all of 4,000 miles on my car the first year I lived in Germany. I walked for daily errands, and took the car for a larger weekly shopping trip, and my “commute” was around seven miles in a medium-sized city.
Twenty years ago we figured the gas would always be cheap and built ourselves into a situation in which we need to take a car to run simple errands. Can we move everyone back to the city? Or can we move stores closer to our neighborhoods?
Something to think about. . .
Comment on June 11, 2008 @ 8:45 am
Perhaps the biggest problem yet to face is how to turn all of this good new panick and public pressure into appropriate action. Popular demand can be counted upon to bring changes eventually, but there is no guarantee that it will bring about the right ones.
As a prime example, take the recent increases in government spending on ethanol and biodiesel incentives. Public opinion resulted in proactive measures, but it now appears that those measures have done more harm than good, if recent research is any indication. Moreover, popular misperceptions about energy in general abound.
What’s needed now is a push to better inform the American public about alternative energy and the costs and benefits of different approaches. Without that all we are likely to see is a continued hodgepodge of placatory gestures and little overall progress.
Comment on June 11, 2008 @ 1:22 pm