Petrol prices should go up and up

8:44am Wednesday 7th May 2008

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THE only message for those complaining about rising fuel prices is: get used to it. They are going to go up and up and up.

If we had a Government prepared to take decisions for the long term wellbeing of the population, it would be increasing the taxation on petrol and diesel, so as to provide itself with the funds necessary to provide research and development of alternative sources of power for transport, heating and so forth.

Extraction from the oil fields is falling as reserves are exhausted. The demand for oil is increasing because the population of the developing nations want to adopt our lifestyle.

The market, which is the only form of economics we are offered by our politicians, responds to a situation of falling supply and increasing demand by raising prices. The oil producers will put the price up to whatever the very rich are prepared to pay, and to hell with everyone else. That is the pain side of market economics.

If we had politicians with foresight and courage they would be helping us to prepare for a world where there is no oil. Since most plastic is derived from oil, that means a world without and endless supply of disposable plastic products.

As I was told by an oil industry scientist many years ago, "It is arrant folly to be burning oil as fuel since it is a finite resource and our plastic-based lifestyle depends on it as a raw material."

We need to be preparing for a lifestyle in which happiness doesn't depend upon a car, cheap air travel and a cornucopia of plastic products.

Maurice Vassie, Cartmans Cottage, Deighton, York.