The angst at the pump last week was predictable.
Anytime somebody informs you the cost of living is going up by a few hundred dollars, or more, during the next year, the groans are inevitable.
Unfortunately, what also seems inevitable is the resignation.
Gas price hikes aren’t new, or unusual. It wasn’t that long ago that prices were under a dollar per litre, and at least half the people reading this are going to remember filling up when that rate was less than 30 cents a litre.
Every time those rates jumped ... by and large, people continued to do what they’ve always done — filled up their cars and headed out to the highway.
The simple fact of the situation is all of us are slaves to the gas pump. Try as we might to avoid it, our society is built around the automobile and has been for at least 60 years. Where we live, where we work, where we learn, where we eat and where we play are often impractical and sometimes impossible to link without the aid of a gas-powered vehicle.
Most of us don’t think we can do anything about it; it doesn’t occur to some of us why we should even try.
But we need to. We need to start directing our society away from its reliance on gas.
It’s easy for some to dismiss the climate change crowd as intellectual zealots, and the 100-mile diet people as trendy hipsters, but the fact remains: we can’t continue down the path.
Never mind the environmental issues, we simply will not be able to afford it financially. The future is coming and our lives are going to be different.
Start embracing change before change buries us all.
—Cowichan News Leader Pictorial