On the news this weekend everyone seemed pretty upset that oil had gone over $100 per barrel. Some of the Sunday morning pundits were saying oil could be $200 by summer and to prepare for $4/gal gas. This significant price increase seems so ominous. Add to that all the political uncertainties playing out across the Middle East right now and it makes for a seeming obvious consequence if oil is something you use. Like me, and likely you.
Now the price of oil/gas/energy is upsetting.. UNTIL you calculate what Americans are now willing to pay for water. That’s right, gas is cheap when you buy water by the pint/liter at the same convenience store. And we live in a society on a planet that is 80% water. When the cost of water is more than oil (or certainly when it is 5X) we need to solve the problem or at least be aware of why we cannot solve it. My little goal is just to make folks aware of it.
At the local convenience store at the end of my street, water is sold in 1 pint containers (.5 of a liter). According to my grade school math, there are 8 pints in a gallon. Thus, if water is $1 a pint, it would cost $8 a gallon. And if there are 55 gallons in a barrel, then a barrel of water costs almost 4 times as much as a barrel of oil. What, 4 times? That seems absurd when water comes out of the faucet for free (sort of, but paid for already for sure).
We as a society need to make more much informed choices if we want to control our destiny. Stop paying for plasticized water would be a good first step.
God bless us all and Citizen Bill and his family.
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