Roanoke Times, July 20, 2006
New River Journal

By Michael Abraham
Gaso-lunacy!
It's a dreary Friday afternoon, raining. I'm in the company van headed for my last delivery, trying to make my way through the nightmare intersection at South Franklin and Cambria streets in Christiansburg. The line I'm in stretches so far I can't even see the red light. I begin to think of traffic and gas prices.
I had read an article about a Christian organization called Pray Live that convened a group of clergy around a Washington, D.C., gas station. In a press release, the group posited that many people "are overlooking the power of prayer when it comes to resolving this energy crisis."
Not issued was how the group concluded that the Almighty would necessarily support a move to make gasoline more affordable and thus spur our profligate consumption.
In his most recent State of the Union address, President Bush told us that we are "addicted to oil." In his latest maneuver for dealing with it, he suspended deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, thus keeping more oil on the open market.
The actual amount was under 1 percent; the effect would be negligible. But it looked like he was doing something.
The Democrats, amply displaying their typical cluelessness, offered a smorgasbord of blame and remedy. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid deemed price increases "unacceptable" and last spring announced his support for the Menendez Amendment, which would give drivers a 60-day vacation from the federal fuel tax. The primary effect of this counterproductive move would be to worsen the already burgeoning national debt.
This lunacy is against the backdrop of unrepentant and unrestrained gluttony. The new poster child for excess, Dave Givens of Mariposa, Calif., was the dubious winner in a contest sponsored by Midas as having the longest commute in the nation. He commutes 370 miles per day! While the worst of the bad, he is but one of millions of us driving longer commutes than ever.
The cars in front of me inch forward, indicating the light must have changed green. Jarred from my reverie, I parade forward but am stopped five cars away from the intersection to await the next sequence. Windshield wipers beat out rhythms like maestros at an orchestra convention. A tattooed arm emerges from the driver's side of a red pickup, and a hand throws out a burning cigarette, which joins hundreds of others on the shoulder of the road.
We live in a blame-free, guilt-free society. Prescient Jimmy Carter asked Americans to understand our energy situation and deal with it in a constructive way, but it cost him his job. Telling people anything other than what they want to hear is political suicide.
I'm not running for office and have nothing to lose in telling you the truth. If you're looking for someone who really deserves the blame, find a mirror.
The primary reason for today's prices is simply a clash between supply and demand. With all freely traded commodities, when investors feel that consumers need more than the market provides, the price rises.
Today we're seeing the first ill wind of Peak Oil, the point at which all the world's wells can no longer yield at the rate consumers can consume. Don't tell me we should be drilling the continental shelves or the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, because these are our last strategic petroleum reserves. Today there are simply too many mouths feeding at diminishing troughs.
Only lunatics tell a society addicted to cocaine that it's the government's job to make cocaine affordable. Our automobile-based transportation monoculture and the unprecedented energy gluttony it inspired is doomed.
Either by enlightened choice or by the forces of nature it will soon be dramatically curbed.
Today's gasoline prices are a fraction of what they'll soon be. The only route to adequate supplies at reasonable prices is to diversify transportation and to simply need a lot less of it.
Note: A barrel of oil at $75 is equivalent to 11 cents per cup, a fraction of what Coca-Cola costs.
Instead of cutting gas taxes, we should raise them. Instead of building new highways, we should forbid them, allowing trains, transit, bicycling and walking to work once again.
The situation begs for reason, logic and leadership but all are painfully absent.
The light changes green again and I motor on, thinking to myself that when there's not enough gas at the pumps, rage will permeate every interstice of our society.
Michael Abraham grew up in Christiansburg and lives in Blacksburg. He always prefers two-wheeled vehicles to four.