On Friday, there was a reclist diary explaining why gas prices are up again, and how global supply quantities (which still haven’t “recovered” to their pre-pandemic peak) are beyond the control of the US government.
Well clearly, if addressing oil prices is beyond the US government, it’s beyond any of us individual Kossacks.
But we can all still do the following, and save $$ directly in our own — and our friends’ — gas costs!
- Drive less. Chronic single-occupancy commute is one of America’s worst contributions to the world. Use transit, human-powered, telecommute, even carpool, and advocate for these non-SOC means to become the norm.
- Switch to a plug-in vehicle. The variety and cost of EVs — both new and used — continues to become more and more accessible to more and more people. I’d say the majority of people who have cars, can afford to replace them with EVs in the very near future.
If you’re not aware of what type of EVs you might be able to get — or if you still buy the oil-lobby line that “EVs are exotic novelties for rich people” — please don’t keep your head in the sand.
It so happens that on the very same day, Friday, someone came to see a gas(!) car we’re trying to get rid of.*
*(long story short, it’s a hand-me-down from friends who left town a year ago when we had 6 people in the home ).
The man was a long-time, highly-educated Puget Sound resident, around 60 years old and working on progressive causes, and he seemed to know his way very well around (gas) cars. Yet when I casually mentioned that our main car is a Leaf, he asked “Is this a hybrid? Or is it also electric?”
We’ve been driving Leafs for 9 years. From the start it’s been a ridiculously normal affair 99% of the time. Also, Puget Sound is probably the nation’s #3 top metro area for EV adoption (after Bay Area and Greater LA). And yet here was a dude who by all means should have substantial EV information, but he was basically clueless about the oldest EV in the US mass market, a BEV now in its 11th model year.
This is not a coincidence. The oil lobby and its servants in the mainstream press have been working overtime to create a wall of Otherness between ordinary Americans and EVs. Thus far they’ve been winning. Please help defeat them.
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PS: Oh, and regarding global oil supply vs. demand: less oil supply is not “a problem to be solved”. It is good news for the planet! It means less is being pumped, more oil businesses failing — and hopefully more oil remaining underground forever, or at least for thousands of years as they get pumped out at a climate-safe rate.