The Real Cost Of A Gallon Of Gas

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

(I fudged the numbers but the point is still valid)

If you were to factor in the environmental cost of gasoline, you’d be paying $10 a gallon. If you were to factor in what we pay for our wars for oil, you’d jack up the price another $5. Put a price on the suffering caused by wars for oil and you’d put the price at $25 dollars a gallon. Add in the impact of an entire plastics industry that exists as a byproduct of our need for gasoline, and we are topping out at $30 a gallon.

I don’t want to steal your Hemi-powered truck from you, I just want you to start paying your fair share of the real cost of gasoline. As it is now, you are stealing from the rest of the world. You are stealing from a planet who’s climate is changing in ways even the fossil fuel industry saw clearly forty years ago, though they kept you in the dark about it. You are stealing from the tax payers who have to pay for wars against oil-rich nations. Your desire for cheap gasoline is stealing from the economy because industry is building weapons for Saudi Arabia when it could be making useful items for us at home. You are stealing from the soldiers who are taken from their families to fight the wars for oil, and are returned home suffering with broken bodies and PTSD. The cost of every veteran committing suicide needs to be added to the cost you pay at the pump.