Gas prices are rocketing all over the World. All fossil fuels should be far more expensive.

Some countries doesn’t charge any environmental taxes onto the price, while others claim a lot. Recently 7online.com enlightened me and wrote that the average price for a gallon of gas on Long Island and in New York City is 3.85 USD for a gallon of gas. That’s 15 cents above the national average in the US.

 
So, the national average for gas in the US is 3.75 USD for a gallon. One gallon is app. 3.785 litres. That gives the Americans a litre price on 0.99 USD. In the US they claim that this is a very high price for petrol. Many Americans would not hesitate to change political leadership for such gas prices. Others would not hesitate going to war in order to secure low fuel prices. There are millions and millions of world citizens wondering why US started the war against Iraq, claiming it all was for controlling the flow of oil. After all, when invading Bagdad the first thing the Americans secured was the department of oil, while they completely ignored the museums containing original artefacts and arts from the first human civilisations.

 
But, back to the lead story here. In Norway the average price for a litre of gas are about USD 2.57. Norway have a big oil production, but still we pay more than 2,5 times as the Americans does. More than 70 percent of the Norwegian price is environmental taxes. I wonder if a civil war would burst in the US if they had to pay, at least, 9.73 USD for a gallon of gas? 

 
Every car owner in the world, even car owners in high urban metropolitan areas like City of London, would claim that they need their car, due to poor alternatives. Even that is not true for London, and in London you are really punished if you use your car. The individual freedom are a holy grail. This freedom often encompass a motor.

 
But, everybody on the entire planet know that the worst crime you can commit against the fellow global environment is burning fossil fuels. The damage against the atmosphere and local and global climate is letal. Species disappears every day. Global weather patterns are changing. Polar ice and arctic permafrost are loosing it’s water binding potential. Billions of tons of ground and water bound CO2 will be set free, and the carbon balance will be severe damaged. Our common earth will bleed even more, and at the end we all will. Maybe the big collapse will hit our children, but most likely ourselves as well.

 
Therefore I strongly suggest that global gas prices should rise much higher than today. UN should demand that every gouverment on the entire planet should claim taxes so that global gas prices should be somewhere about 3 USD for a litre. Special economic help programs must ensure that developing countries will get their fuel for a much lower cost. The global tax should be secured in a special world salvation fund, paying for environmental first aid and re-construction of destroyed forests, dead sea and securing the future for the third world which have payed and will pay the highest price for the wild consumption of fossil energy.

 
Global oil production has reached its peak for a long time ago, and we don’t have the right to empty everything now, without paying for the real costs this consumption are affecting the global environment. Also, it should be clear that those who have burnt most of the oil should pay for most of the global renovation needed.

 
This would be fair for the planet. It would be fair for the mankind. And it surely will bring a lot of research onto clean energy like, for example, hydrogen cells. But such an act would demand politicians with an ethical mind and the ability to look further ahead than tomorrow, and the ability to look longer than their own nose. I don’t think they exist. Yet.

Some interesting aspects are also to be read in the Washington Post.