[lit-ideas] Re: global luke-warming
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 11:04:29 -0700
On Apr 14, 2006, at 3:39 AM, Teemu Pyyluoma wrote:
For
example most EU nations have considerable taxes on
petrol, originally for trade balance reasons but
nowadays for environmental ones. Americans don't. And
this is really all you need to know to explain why
average car in Europe has much better MPG than the
average car in USA. Or what has had more effect on air
quality, few people biking or improving standards on
fuel and exhausts?
Here's the number that puzzles my slow mind: cost of a barrel of oil
from 1986 to 1999...within a range of $15 to $30. Cost of a barrel of
oil between 1999 and the present...rising to $60. And what has
happened to the cost of a gallon of gas?
Well according to this website, if you allow for inflation, the price
of gas in real dollars was about half in 1986...which is in line with
the change in cost of a barrel of oil.
http://www.energy.ca.gov/gasoline/statistics/gasoline_cpi_adjusted.html
But I lived in California in 1985 and I remember paying a couple of
dollars per gallon. Inflation should make money worth less. So if I'm
paying two dollars and some per gallon now and I was paying two dollars
and some per gallon then...there's something weird about the
calculation.
Why haven't our gas (petrol) prices doubled? Because the cost of oil
is a small percentage of the cost of the final product and refiners are
taking a smaller mark-up? Because there has been an adjustment in
taxes? Because re-sellers are taking a smaller mark-up?
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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