Get ready I’m about to state the obvious, gas prices are clearly on everyone’s mind. It occurs to me that we seem to complain and speculate a lot about the reasons for the increase. Generally in discussions or news stories things like demand, or speculation or corporate greed will be attributed to the price inflation but you never seem to get the whole picture. In this light I propose a new project. This yet to be named project will be twofold. First, we need to figure out what exactly goes into the price of oil and consequently the price of gas. This should be easy enough, for the most part the information is publicly available. We will then consolidate this information to give a clear picture of what is going on and distribute it. The second part of the project is the big one.
It has been stated numerous times that our only real solution to oil prices currently is to curb demand. To do this we need a national program to reduce consumption. It’s probably safe to assume that for whatever the reason we can’t rely on the government for this. Additionally the thought of the government dipping it’s hand in the gas situation gives most economists and people who drove in the 1970’s the shivers. So why not open source the project? The number of miles driven in March by almost 11 billion miles compared to the previous year (U. S. Department of Transportation [PDF]), showing people are willing to change their habits. The open source model could create a program that is developed from numerous points of view taking into account a variety of situations. It could also include experts to make sure the program works and isn’t just hype.
Giving people a clear picture of the “whys” of the oil pricing will help to keep politicians from using gas prices as political ploys (or more likely allow people to see through them). This will also give people a motivation other than financial to join in a open sourced program to reduce consumption of oil.
