I can’t believe it. My regional AAA president is asking for member suggestions on how to deal with high gas prices. For years, I have tried to engage with AAA political directors and memberhip magazine columnists to get them to support increasing the CAFE standards on behalf of the membership, but to no avail with their dogged hostility to the idea.

In this month’s Via magazine (July-August 2006), Wes Choc, president of Mountain West AAA asks how AAA should focus their resources and clout on the long term supply-and-demand issues that affect the price of gasoline. Here’s my response:

Dear President Choc,

Thank you for the invitation to members for advice on how AAA should address transportation needs in light of high gas prices. I have tried to engage AAA political directors and magazine columnists in the past and found them most unresponsive, in fact hostile, to progressive ideas. I am encouraged by your willingness to hear from members.

In that spirit, I will suggest that you open your receptivity to considering a broader question than just that of the long term supply and demand issues affecting the price of gasoline. Few wants gas or fuel oil just for the intrinsic value. Mostly it is a means toward doing some work, being it transportation, making something, heating one’s living space. The issue is much broader – how can we responsibly and most efficiently obtain the benefits of energy to meet our needs and desires?

If AAA had taken the tack a couple of decades ago to keep CAFE standards increasing for new vehicles, effective demand for motor fuel could have been down and transportation costs reduced. AAA’s tenacious refusal to get behind increased CAFE standards has encouraged our profligate use of non-renewable fuels that the oil lobby and auto manufacturers short-sightedly insisted upon since the end of the Arab Oil Embargo. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5458404

If we consider the possible implications of climate change, it can be demonstrated that continuing failure to act has done nothing but hurt our long and now medium term well-being. Every day, there are new reports of the impacts from climate change. Today’s news reinforces several years of warning about the increased acidity of the oceans, which until now, had been stable for tens of thousands of years. Increased acidity upsets the balance of life in the ocean, threatens coral reefs and all forms of crustaceans. Say good-bye to that lobster dinner. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/265052_acid31.html

Increased drilling for more non-renewables doesn’t address the need for efficient consumption. Shifting to coal just exacerbates the CO2 problem and oil shale technologies require substantive amounts of water, already being depleted in many states. Natural gas would be a fine bridging fuel, but the long and short is we need to be efficient in whatever fuel we use and the Japanese auto industry continues to demonstrate that the U.S. auto industry could and should have done much better.

Ethanol might be part of the mix, but we don’t have enough water to make it our sole source. And let’s not talk nuclear until we figure out how to render inert the radioactive material that remains when we are done using the fuel. Trusting that we can bury something for 10,000 years safely requires a substantial amount of hubris.

Use of solar and wind renewables pretty much expect electric powered cars, not as feasible for mass marketing with the limited range, given the current crop of batteries. Those marketed 10 years ago in response to California’s Zero Emissions haven’t been supported. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5524892 More efficient batteries would thus be a logical area of encouragement. Fuel cells have some promise.

First, if AAA does nothing else, getting behind an ambitious effort to increase CAFE, particularly with SUVs now exempt from current auto requirements, is the logical first step.

Secondly, to suggest what might appear to add insult to already high gas prices, I would opine that gas taxes could be increased, with the increase going to fund industry efforts to improve efficiency of transportation technology and to continue to fund taxpayers who choose the most efficient cars. I suggested this when gas prices were low and continue to do so. I’d also suggest a windfall profits tax be levied on those who profit most from high oil prices, i.e. the oil companies. The income from that tax should be used to help those most hurt by high oil prices (heating fuel in particular) and to help those communities who will increase their investment in alternate (bicycles, etc.) and mass transportation.

Finally, having AAA join with many cities and states in this country that are now joining many of the world’s nations in support of the Kyoto Protocol would be an important step. The Bush Administration and Congress, representing a nation that consumes much more resources per capita than any other nation, insult the world in not agreeing to the relatively minor commitment to protect our planet’s habitat. The irony of this is that we have so much more to lose from not doing so.

People tend to not pay much attention until something hits them smack in the face. Yet if given alternatives to balance out lifestyle choices with intelligent ones on behalf of society and one’s longer term interest, a little incentive can go a long way toward improving receptivity to change.

When I was in my early 20’s, I was told by those much older than I that “You youngsters have got a big job. We’ve done messed it all up.” Ours was the generation that had so much hope of righting many of the wrongs, but I regret to say now to my kids the very same thing. I’d like to think that mankind can act as we did to reduce our use of chlorofluorcarbons to save the ozone in the upper atmosphere, yet substantively reducing our CO2 in a short time frame will require a broader and more intense effort on our part. And failing to do so will only increase the negative impacts. Katrina? We’ve seen nothing yet.

It’s all in front of us, if we choose to see it. AAA can play a part. I encourage substantive action from an organization of which I have been a member for nearly 40 years. Let’s do more than just publish ideas – join with the other regional AAA presidents and advocate for national action to intelligently reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and thus preserve our society.