Rising gas prices lead to fuel thefts

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The rise in gasoline and diesel prices across the US to almost $4 a gallon is leading to increased fuel thefts.

One can but wonder what Americans would do if they would have to deal with the fuel prices in places such as the UK where it is well double of that per gallon in US dollars.

The price hikes in the USA are happening despite the fact that the Obama administration has, in 2011, released an unprecedented amount of strategic reserves onto the market.

Then again, oil is getting short in supply, at least cheap abundant oil, and last year, according to sources, the world used 40% more oil then there was being produced. And there are some that predict, unless the economy does not recover, that in 2012 the required use will be 50% to even 60% ABOVE production.

I should think that it does not take a mathematical genius to work out that this cannot continue. Something will have to give and this something, unless we really can afford it financially, will have to be the way we drive and the way we use the automobile.

While that is something that the commuter, especially in the suburbs and further afield of the United States (and the UK) certainly does not wish to hear it is something that will have to be done.

Our towns and cities must be populated again and we must otherwise work closer to where we live or live closer to where we work; which ever way. Commuting hundreds of miles just is not an option anymore and was never sustainable to start with.

Everyone wanted to live outside the towns and cities and this mas made possible by the use of the motorcar and cheap abundant oil. People wanted to live in the unspoilt country if they had to work in the grimy towns but in the end suburbia, aside from being just a dormitory for workers, with maybe a school or two, just become an annexe to the town or city and the countryside vanished under ever more suburban sprawl.

We must – and in the end will be forced to – abandon the suburbs and return to live closer to our jobs, in towns and cities, or, alternatively, the work will have to come to us, wherever we live.

That can take a number of forms but for that the suburbs will have to change and become communities rather than remaining dormitories for the towns and cities, as they are today.

© 2012