What's With the Gas Prices?

I don't know about anyone else, but these rising gas prices are really not something I enjoy. The price of diesel rose almost twenty cents a gallon literally overnight from $3.59 a gallon to $3.75 a gallon. Unleaded gasoline rose what I consider a significant amount as well overnight. I do not understand the cause of this! Yeah, sure, our economy is crap, but  is this rise in gas prices really necessary? That is what I want to find out. I realize that Americans consume an excessive amount of gas considering that there are some students who will actually drive from the parking lot by the criminal justice building to the main parking lot on campus that is just across the street. It is literally a five minute walk from that building to the student center. I know, I make the walk every Monday and Wednesday. My guess is it most likely takes about the same amount of time to drive as it is to walk so my suggestion to people who do this is to just walk.


When going to a certain website about the rising gas prices, I found that people in the United States consume 19 million barrels of oil a day. This is twenty-five percent of the world's supply. I find that pretty ridiculous. When people ask why we don't use our own oil to help lower these gas prices the answer is because America does not have enough oil to even make a difference considering we have less than two percent of the world's oil reserves. When doing the math, if America were to drill out all the oil know in the country, there would only be enough oil to last us about three years. One thing I did not know is that the price for each gallon of gas is set globally. They figure this amount by how much gas each country pumps, the geopolitical stability of each country, and how much each country has in reserves. Another question I had in mind about gas prices is why do prices for gasoline and diesel differ from state to state? The answer for this actually many different factors such as the greater distance from the supply means a higher price. This helps explain why gasoline is so much higher per gallon in California than it is here in Missouri. Another factor that creates that different gas prices from state to state is the places with fewer gas stations tend to have higher gas prices. Since there is no way America can lower the rising prices on their own, the best solution is to cut off our reliance on oil. A way to do this is to produce better vehicles as well as come up with cleaner fuels. This site stated oil is a bad way to power cars in the first place because only two out of every ten gallons of gas actually moves your car. That is crazy to me to think that that much money putting fuel into our vehicles is wasted. This video clip helped show some of the more fuel efficient cars that are out on the market right now. 


I know that rising gas prices is a problem for anyone that has a vehicle. The higher prices make people think about when they are going to drive, what they need to cut back on in order to pay for gas, and so on. It definitely will limit my pointless trips to Braum's to get my favorite treat, ice cream. This is is something that would also help if everyone cut out those little trips just for one thing. Carpooling would also be something that would help, but with everyone's busy schedule today I see how that is hard to do. Gas prices are high right now and they will most likely keep rising and rising. It is all over the news that gas prices will be well into and above the $4 per gallon region by summertime. This is only a few short months away! The best suggestion I can make is to be more fuel efficient with the gas we have. Instead of driving, take a walk, or ride a bike if where your needing to go is not that far away. If you and your boyfriend are going to the same place as another couple, ride together. This saves on gas as well as providing quality time to spend with friends. Even though it, for lack of a better word, sucks, it is something we are all going to have to deal with and make the best of.