Big gas

It’s an invasive, almost personal, question.

How much must a gallon of gas cost for you to drive less? Five bucks a gallon? Six? What’s the number that will make ya howl “Nada, nada, nada, nada”?

The truth is stark: We have to drive less, and we have to have more—and better—mass transit. That is the glorious future. Those who doubt it are misdirected at best, bought off at worst. If you have enough Hamiltons for the gas tank, it’s not a tough question. If you’re low on the ladder of the 99 percent, it can be life or death.

Are you willing to curtail your miles yourself, or are you waiting for the free market to rise up and kick your ass? Aunt Ruth is a little of both.

Her overall gas mileage is dialed down about as low as she can go: telecommuting three days a week, one car (out of two in the household) is a hybird. She’s a bit of a leadfoot—there’s some give there—but everybody still has to get to work at the end of the day. (And why did we build the suburbs so far from the jobs? Eh?) The Sunday drive through farmlands (and such) remains a guilty pleasure, and the bicycle—once Ruth’s vehicle of choice—is no longer practical except for local errands. There’s some give there, too.

With the Republican’t presidential candidates treating the rise in gas prices as the latest opportunity to spew vitriol—Rick Santorum said that the Obama administration “wants higher energy prices. They want to push their radical agenda on the public”—one can almost imagine their disappointment in an improving economy. That and their rising desperation.

Can’t speak for the president, but hell, yeah: Higher energy prices are coming. Coming like death: for Ruth and for you, for Republicans and Democrats. For richer and poorer, in sickness and in health. It’ll be hard, but Europe has been paying it for years. Never mind that Iran is cranking up the cost per barrel, and that that too will be a political football in a country that now plays political football as bloodsport.

Ruthie remembers how natural foods just became part of the pantry. Happened over time, not all at once. And now who could have it any other way?

Now if only somebody would just move the day job closer to Ruthie’s house.