Victoria's Green Matters - 6th Jan 2011

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:

Have you re-fuelled your car recently? Quite a shock, isn’t it, to see petrol and diesel prices rising on what seems to be an almost daily basis? The threat of the ‘£5 gallon’ seems a distant memory with prices for diesel, in particular, well above this. There is an increase in fuel duty and VAT to come by 4 January 2011 that is set to add about 3.5p per litre to your chosen fuel. These increases reverberate through all of life as increased fuel costs put up the price of goods we need to buy.

So, whom do we blame? It is a difficult mix of lots of things that can alter the price of oil. The failing global economy has a lot to answer for; the pound has hit a three-month low against the dollar and inflation has risen to 3.3% while, in the US, a second round of economic stimulus packages has strengthened demand. The old economic adage of ‘supply and demand’ has done its job and oil prices have soared.

Perhaps we should look at this another way. We know that we have reached peak oil – in other words we have come to the end of the era of cheap oil and so we must get used to there being less oil available for the many uses that we accept as normal. If we determine that we will use less oil in our everyday lives, then the oil that is left will last longer. Using less of all the fossil fuels will also help to slow the inexorable rise in global temperatures that threaten the lives of so many people.

So, if you use your car less, you will not only save yourself some money but you will help to reduce the production of carbon dioxide and maybe the climate will not change quite as much.