The boycotts don't work.

If everyone in America boycotted gassing up their cars for a single day, it wouldn't so much as cause a hiccup.  Why?  Because you still have to gas up the next day.  In the end, all you do is put on a show with no real plot.  But, because we live in a me-first-right-now society, we expect that short-term gains can be achieved in everything we do.  Unfortunately, prices of commodities don't work that way.  They skyrocket upward on speculation, but only fall back down based on proven trends of supply versus demand.  There's only one sure-fire way to bring gas prices back down, and we've all heard it over and over again.  We just don't practice it: reduce overall consumption.  Lower demand, lower prices.

Americans are wasteful.  Horribly, horribly wasteful.  I'm as guilty as anyone, too.  We search for instant convenience at the cost of some far-off comfort we can't fathom right now.  If we had thought about — and accepted as fact — the long-term ramifications of buying gas-guzzling SUVs for no reason other than to say we had the biggest, heaviest, most luxurious vehicle, chances are we'd be driving the smallest vehicles possible while still managing to shuttle our families around.  But, as it stands, we're standing in our own gasoline-soaked grave right now.  Our dependence on fossil fuels has never been higher, and it's getting worse by the day.

Now, don't buy into the liberal hype that our government's domestic and foreign policy is to blame.  As I said a few days ago, the war in Iraq has had, at most, about a 25-cent impact on the price of gasoline, and the highest gas taxes in the country are around 55 cents.  In reality, the cause of the rapid rise in price is something we, as private citizens of the U.S., have little control over: the emergence of both China and India as major economic players.  As their economies improve, their citizens' wealth increases; as people get wealthier, they desire greater luxuries, and in previously under-developed nations, the greatest bang-for-your-buck luxury is an automobile. 

Granted, we in the U.S. still use three times as much oil as China, even though their population is four times what ours is. That's due partly to the established road infrastructure we've developed in over 100 years, and the spread of wealth in this country relative to other nations.  But that's not an excuse; it's an indictment.  We are a top-ten oil-producing nation, but we consume drastically more than we produce, and we do it with such a flippant attitude that it's no wonder we're viewed as arrogant around the world.  All it takes is a little common sense, and we — the most powerful nation in the history of mankind — can begin to sway the price of oil over time.

But it will take time.

Can you cut one mile out of your average daily drive?  That's seven miles per week, people.  It's not asking much.  At an estimated 200 million drivers in the U.S. (a low estimate, considering that statistic comes from 2004), if we cut our driving by one mile per day, we would eliminate 73 billion miles driven per year.  At a rough national average of about 20 miles per gallon (+/- 1 mpg), that comes to 3.65 billion gallons of gasoline saved in a single year.  At 19.2 gallons of gasoline for every 42-gallon barrel of oil, we would save over 190 million barrels of oil, or 520,834 barrels per day.  That's 2.5 percent of this country's daily consumption.  While that doesn't seem like a big deal, it is, and here's why: it's 0.5 percent higher than the average rate of growth in consumption in the U.S.  If achieved globally rather than just domestically, it would be a mere 0.2 percent lower than the expected rate of growth in global demand through 2030.  So, yes, it's a ver, very big deal.

It's beyond possible: it's very achievable.  All it takes is a small amount of discipline, some forethought, and a simple understanding that the best things in life are a result of the patience you put into them and your steadfast belief that it will work.