The price of gas, which has been on the rise for some time now, surges even higher as our nation tries to rebuild everything that Hurricane Katrina destroyed. In her efforts to perpetuate the high cost of gas, Katrina prompts operators to close more than a tenth of the country's refining capacity and a quarter of its oil production which, in turn, has a great deal to do with the steady climbing of gas prices. This has exacerbated a growing problem forever looming in the shadows: the inevitable extinction of natural oil.
At this time, the nation and most parts of the world are heavily dependent upon the earth's natural oil and are desperately trying to get the previously closed oil refineries up and running again. Doing this, however, takes much needed time and money: two things growing shorter by the minute. It is up to the government to decide where we should go from here and whether or not to continue down this seemingly rocky road. Our first concern would be cost; something everyone would hope to be cheap. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.
People possess many diverse opinions relative to recent gas prices and methods of transportation. Those who believe that current prices are reasonable argue the prices are a bargain because they change according to inflation and rising real income, and that opposition to the existing situation is useless. Also, many claim that simply cutting back on our vehicle usage and using alternate methods of transportation such as: walking, riding the bus, bicycling, or taking the subway may help the situation. This may appear as an easy, logical solution for many people, but these options are not always available, particularly to those who live in rural areas.
The people living in rural areas face many obstacles when it comes to transportation. For many, their automobiles are their only way to commute from place to place; consequently, gas prices play a major role in their lives. First of all, citizens of rural areas not only have limited transportation methods, they are also affected more extensively by the high gas costs. They lack what urban areas are over-run with. Subways, mass transit, and buses are not available to them; consequently, they must pay out hundreds of dollars on gas which could have easily been used to feed their families. Then again, if they were to do that, how would they get to work to make what money actually does to toward their gas money? Secondly, if we were to address that portion of the problem and subways, trains, and buses became prevalent in rural regions, we would still have to face the inevitable fact that we will eventually consume all of the Earth's natural resources...then what? Many of the alternative transportation methods opponents say to use run on gasoline; therefore, this is not a fail-safe solution to our problem. It also would not satisfy all parties concerned with this subject. This is why we, not as a city, not as a region, and not as a nation, but as a world need to focus our all on finding an alternative fuel source, despite the fact that the government has showed little interest in doing so.
If we can achieve creating a renewable energy source, we could help people all across the world. The United States is not the only nation who is currently relying on the unknown amount of natural resources. By aiding other countries in finding different sources of fuel, we could possibly gain more future allies in the process; for they would be indebted to us and to the help we gave them.
Even if we can hold out through the questionable cost of gasoline, gasoline cannot hold out for us. If we can afford to fund projects that spend billions of dollars searching for cures to things that afflict us such as, AIDS, diabetes, and cancer, can we not also take the much needed time to find the cure for something that is not eternally promised, something that we are so heavily dependent upon, something we cannot survive without: an endless means of transportation.