Is the spike in gas prices good for America?

The average price of gasoline at the pump in the U.S. last week was $4.58 a gallon. It will doubtless spike up to $5.00 before too long as it is already above $6 in California.

U.S. gas prices are cheap compared to Europe. If you fancy traveling to London for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, the price is $5.79; if you love Paris in the springtime, it’s $5.54; and if you want to see the pope, Rome is $5.96. Some countries you might like to visit are even higher.

Gasoline prices follow oil prices. Every $10 increase in the price of crude oil adds about 24 cents to the cost of each gallon of gasoline at the pump. And oil prices have surged. Since the first of the year, oil has risen as much as 58 percent and retail gas 24 percent. The principal culprit, according to some experts, has been not cancelation of the Keystone Pipeline or COVID -19, but Putin’s move on Ukraine. It may be said, however, that oil prices were already spiking ahead of the invasion.

Americans have long taken cheap gas as a foregone conclusion, and have been profligate in its consumption. When I visited London in the 1970s, the price in New York was roughly 60 cents a gallon, and after converting liters to gallons, and pounds to dollars, I was astonished to learn that the price in the UK was over $2.

There is a political problem with high gas prices. They are a hardship on working Americans as prices rise overall in an inflated economy. Gasoline costs may amount to $5,000 a year for a heavily taxed family.

But in the long run, an inflated price for gasoline is, I would argue, good for the environment. It may encourage people to take carpools to work, to bicycle and walk more. This will improve health and welfare.

The price spike may further spur the development of battery-driven cars. Both Ford and General Motors have said they will be manufacturing all-electric fleets by 2030. I never thought I would live to see the day.

True, batteries need to be recharged, and their energy efficiency will turn on the “energy mix” in the local electricity grid. Most grids in the U.S. are powered by multiple sources of energy, including renewables such as wind and solar. President Biden has pledged to work towards decarbonizing the U.S. electricity grid by 2035. And the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill provides funding for electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

High gas prices may intensify the search for alternative energy sources. Former President Trump claims wind farms kill birds, but they make a sustainable source of battery recharging. Hydrogen as an alternative transportation fuel stems from its ability to power fuel cells in zero-emission vehicles, its potential for domestic production and the fuel cell’s fast filling time and high efficiency. Today 95 percent of the hydrogen produced in the United States is made by natural gas reforming, an advanced production process that builds upon the existing natural gas pipeline delivery infrastructure.

Besides, hydrogen is much cheaper than crude and may also be a source of clean energy. The Green New Deal movement has been anathema to the far-right climate deniers, who have argued that environmentalists are undercutting the teachings of religion.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) has cited the Bible as his basis for denying climate change. Inhofe, past chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has argued for years that only God, not men and women, can affect climate. He said in a 2012 address: “[M]y point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.” It couldn’t be that the real basis is that Oklahoma is an oil and gas state.

Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), who served in the House for 24 years, believes global warming is nothing to worry about “because God promised in the book of Genesis that he wouldn’t destroy the earth after the flood.” God decides when the “earth will end,” he thundered. Shimkus forgot that the almighty’s promise was tightly hedged: “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” In the words of Shakespeare: “The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.”

But if the price of gas continues to rise, there may be the same kind of rejection of gasoline as a fuel for automobiles as occurred with heavily taxed tobacco. No environmentalist claim that the planet will become uninhabitable unless we reduce emissions will land with greater force on the gas guzzling American people than the end of cheap gas.

Will the country decisively move toward renewable energy if gas at the pump is $7 or $8?

James D. Zirin is a lawyer and author.