Lindsay Patterson

“Beer is now cheaper than gas,” the sign outside the local pizza place reminded me during lunch. If you own a car, it probably hasn’t escaped your notice that gas prices have been ticking steadily upwards at an alarming rate. The nationwide average is now $3.61, a 55 cent increase from last year.

And according to research from Florida State University, it’s giving Americans a serious case of the blues. “Employees were simply unable to detach themselves from the stress caused by escalating gas prices as they walked through the doors at work,” said researcher Wayne Hochwarter.

Surveying 800 people across the Southeastern US, Horchwarter found:

52 percent have reconsidered taking vacations or other recreational activities;

45 percent have had to cut back on debt-reduction payments, such as credit card payments;

Nearly 30 percent considered the consequences of going without basics including food, clothing and medicine;

45 percent report that the escalating gas prices have “caused them to fall behind financially”;

39 percent agreed with the statement “Gas prices have decreased my standard of living”; and

About 33 percent - or one in three - said they would quit their job for a comparable one nearer to home.

I’m fortunate that I live where I can ride my bike and take public transportation almost everywhere I need to go. As it is, I’m not likely to plan trips out of town, and I’m anxious to share rides with people if I have to get into my car. But would I choose gas over food or medicine? The fact that these decisions are being considered sounds like that critical point we’ve heard so much about - when individual Americans take steps to cut back on fossil fuels.

But what are these steps, and how realistic are they? Even if people are willing to take a job closer to home, they may not be able to find one. And if they’re already sacrificing to deal with gas prices, they’re probably not going to go out and buy a new Prius.

MIT has new study looking at what it will take to cut consumer fuel use. The biggest step, it says, is changing consumer expectations: For those who are buying new cars, they’re not going to get faster, sexier improvements - they’re going to get improvements in fuel efficiency. It reminds me of a similar study from MIT (they must be really into this kind of thing), which asked what it will take for people to buy greener cars. The author, Jeroen Struben, told me that it would take a huge mobilization (no pun intended) of the auto industry and policy makers, to get alternative fuel vehicles accepted by consumers. Again, no pun intended, but it seems that there are many, many roadblocks to making fuel efficiency commonplace. Maybe that $4 gallon gas will change all the rules. But we said that about $3 gas, didn’t we?

At the end of last year, the International Energy Agency sounded the alarm on China and India’s developing power sector.

“China’s and India’s surging fuel consumption poses a growing challenge to the world’s energy systems and, unless curbed, will strain global oil trade, push up prices and lead to substantially higher carbon dioxide emissions in coming decades,” the New York Times reported on the IEA’s World Energy Outlook report.

Ambuj Sagar is a researcher at Harvard University, working on developing sustainable policies for coal. It’s not an easy task, between the governmental bureaucracy, and the complex social and environmental issues involved. He said what bothers him most is when people point fingers at India and China for contributing to the greenhouse problem.

“This is me putting on my developing countries hat, this always irks me,” Sagar told me over the phone. “Yes, India and China are going to be developing, but Western nations already have an enormous base.”

Consider this: The world average of kilowatt (power) use per capita is 2,600. The average of the wealthy, well-developed OECD nations is 8,365 kilowatts (or 11,000 if you’re just averaging North America).

Meanwhile, India uses 480 kilowatts per capita. That’s an average of 7,885 fewer kilowatts per person. And China, which is significantly more developed, uses 1,800.

“When I hear the IEA say worry about India, yeah, we should worry for multiple reasons,” said Sagar. “But when you look at 480 [kilowatts per capita], it tells me that if I’m really concerned about global energy supplies, and the global coal supply, or the global energy crunch or the global greenhouse gas issue, I know where the focus has to be.”

So, okay, maybe our fingers should be pointed at ourselves. But here’s my question. Industrialized nations continue to use fossil fuel because we have a fossil fuel infrastructure. We have roads, cars, power plants, pipelines, and on and on. It’s a major block to working outside the box in terms of energy. But these things are just beginning to develop in India. With no infrastructure in place, India has the opportunity power itself on green energy. Do it once, do it right. Why not?

According to Sagar, the answer is that India is poor, and green technology is expensive. And that’s because industrialized nations have not done enough research to make the technology efficient, and they haven’t used it enough to make it affordable. Meanwhile, fossil fuel technology is readily available.

He said, “The richer countries that have the resources, and the stronger science base. They need to take the lead in developing new technology and deploying it. Because as you deploy new technology, the price goes down.”

But despite long, ongoing conversations about sustainable energy and sustainable development, that hasn’t happened. According to Sagar, research and development budgets have not had any significant increases since the discussion began in the early 90’s.

“So although everyone is saying that climate change is a problem, and energy technology is going to play a big role, they’re not putting their money where their mouth is,” Sagar said.

I asked Sagar if he was hopeful about sustainable development and finding a solution to global warming. “I oscillate between hope and despair,” he said. “Sometimes I’m hopeful and sometimes I think we’re really up the creek.”