my roommate and i biked to the corner store today to get some flour (see brownie recipe). gas there, as everywhere, is over $3.30 per gallon, approaching $3.40. myspace bulitens and email fowards are swarming with smart ways to save gas and save money on gas. people say to buy gas in the morning when it’s cooler (gas, like other things expand in heat), to buy from smaller gas companies so the large companies have to lower their prices to compete, to buy from the cheapest place in blank neighborhood, to blah blah blah. gas costs more than you’re paying at the pump.

as most of us radical ladies know, gasoline is bad for you and other living things. it’s ultimately carcinogenic. you can tell it’s bad for your lungs when you breath it and you cough afterwards. kids huffing it to get high have died, the fumes can cause asphyxiation. while gas is kept in tanks that are as leak proof as we currently can be, how much gas and carbon dioxide do you think we breath in everytime a car drives by us or everytime we fill up our tanks. think about this added to all the other carncinogenic things we breath (cigarette smoke, other greenhouse gases), eat (artifical sweeteners, canola oil) and get exposed to (many make ups, industrial cleaners) in our everyday life.

how much do you think chemotherapy and other cancer treatments cost? because you should add that to the price of your gallon.

not to mention the trees and other plants- which normally absorb carbon dioxide- that are destroyed in order to clear the way for oil refineries (such as in Alaska). or the marine life (plants, fish, algea(which also can be used to make fuel), birds, &tc) killed when ocean oil refineries leak or spill. or what will happen if we run out. gasoline’s renewability takes the amount of time it takes for algea and plants to fossilize.

people, even “liberals” and “progressives”, want gas prices to go down, but even if the dollars get reduced on the gas station sign, the health and environmental price will go up as we use more and more fossil fuels. ultimately fucking us over just as much as paying $3.50 per gallon.

honestly? i think gas should be expensive. i think it should be $4 or $5 a gallon and we should drive less. i think for buses and trucks gas should be much less (so it doesn’t drive up the cost of transporting everything else). it’s been proven that for the most part we won’t choose the option that’s better for our health and the health of others and raising the price of gas forces us to drive less. or choose public transportation. or buy hybrid vehicles. or bike. or carpool. or walk. which is what we have to do in order to ensure not only our health, but if we will have gasoline in the future.

i use to think that this line of thinking was classest, but then i remember the reason i don’t drive is actually because i can’t afford a car (or gas, even if it was a dollar a gallon). most of us working already have to take the bus or bike. what has to happen is that the people with money need to encourage public transportion to expand. more buses (especailly hybrids), more trains, more bike racks on buses and more support (both finacial and advertisement).

we talk a lot about not harming the earth, but ultimately we are harming ourselves. poisoning our bodies so we develope cancer and breathing prblems such as asthma. destroying wildlife which means less plant resources (less plants AND animals to eat and contribute to ecosystems we rely on). the pollution of the air which effects the bee population which effects the plants whcih create the oxygen we breathe. the more gas we use, no matter the price, the more we pay all around.