It was just last year when I filled up and it cost about $35.00. Last week it cost me $46.00 for the same fill up.
I am going to travel back in time when I drove a 1965 VW Beetle in high school - the year was 1971. I paid .25 per gallon of gas! It cost $2.50 for a fill up. You could also buy 5 White Castle Hamburgers for a buck.
This link is provided by the U.S. Energy Information Administration - provides the historical rise of gas prices:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mg_tt_usM.htm
Now leaping back to our current year.
Everyone is now fearing where this cost for fuel is going. The forecast looks bleak. The costs of food, travel, any products manufactured and carried to market - almost everything is being effected by the cost of rising fuels prices.
There is a huge push for alternative fuels. Solar, Wind, Hydro, Ethanol, Coal, Uranium, Hydrogen, used cooking oil - almost anything to meet our county's energy needs. attached is a link to Wikipedia about Alternative Fuels for more information.
Everyday we are faced with rising living costs that are out pacing our incomes. Fuel prices are effecting everything in our lives. What is going to happen to our way of life? We will be forced to adjust - change our ways, our choices, even our lives.
I think many people will start looking back in time to see how people were able to make due with less. Growing your own food, making your own home furnishings, making your own clothes, and especially traveling less. We may even find ourselves using horses, bicycles, or anything that will allow us to travel in a more affordable way. I also think communities will have to bond together and form coops for non profit reasons to survive. These coops will help provide food, clothing, building materials - the fundamentals of Life.
Articles about the growing Gas Problems:
http://www.nytimes.com
http://www.cnn.com
We still use electricity in our daily lives for cooking, TV and of course, the Internet.
We need to look towards the future to solve today's problems, but until then fill your tires to the correct pressure, change your air filters and drive slower.
What do you feel about the rising costs of fuel and the future way of life?
I just ran across this article about Staycations from the Sun Sentinel.
