$99.29 per Barrel

Close.  We’ve heard of the threat of $100 per barrel oil for donkey’s years now.  Today, that benchmark was quite nearly reached.

Now, some might say that this will be an incentive for more investment in alternative fuels.  Those people are stupid.  This means converting tar sands to synthetic crude is now really profitable.  Oil shale conversion will be profitable, too.  If you thought conventional crude was bad for the environment. . .

Why won’t things change?  Because setting a thermostat to 68 instead of 72 is considered eco-friendly in America.  Because setting it a bit lower when one is not home instead of turning it completely off is considered eco-friendly in America.  Because most apartment buildings prohibit hanging laundry outside because it looks bad, which is OK because no American would seriously consider not using a clothes dryer or a dishwasher or climate control anyway.  Because every new technology or pollution control measure has to not only be better, but also cheaper than the alternatives.  Because America decided long ago that pecuniary cost-benefit analysis is the rubric by which absolutely everything must be judged.  No other factor matter at all unless the pecuniary cost-benefit analysis is absolutely even.

And the rest of the world is desperate to catch up.

Enjoy the wealth, Alberta.  Enjoy while you can before your province is a giant nasty black hole and you’ve forgotten how to do anything other than literally seel the ground out from under yourselves.

To everyone else, if you don’t feel like an asshole every time you start your car, you should.

~ by One Fat Penguin on November 21, 2007.