Rising Gas Prices

As geologist Richard Hazlett noted in “ ‘California Living’ Can’t Be Sustained” (Commentary, June 22) the end of cheap oil is probably less than 10 years away. With the peak of oil production, increasing demand and decreasing supply will force the price of oil and gas to increase exponentially. Fifty-mile commutes, 12-lane freeways and the landscape of urban sprawl are going to be history. If we start now, we might just manage to adapt without disaster.

Democrats and Republicans alike just want OPEC to turn the tap open wider, hastening the day when the price goes up to $10 or $20 a gallon. We Americans need to educate ourselves and our leaders about the approaching encounter with natural limits and act fast to build a society that will endure.

RICHARD B. ANDERSON

Santa Barbara

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So gasoline prices are going through the roof. What do people expect? OPEC and the international oil companies make up a monopoly that controls a commodity that virtually every living person on Earth depends upon in one way or another. The cartel can name its own price. This is one monopoly that the Justice Department is powerless to break up.

What happened to all the alternative energy programs that government and industry worked so hard on in the days of the ‘70s oil shocks? On the scrap heap, because they couldn’t compete with cheap oil. Well, it isn’t so cheap now. Perhaps it’s time once again to look seriously at alternative, renewable, clean energy sources. And this time, stick with it when OPEC and the oil companies wake up to the renewed threat to their power and open up the floodgates to once again lull the world into a false sense of security.

JON ROWE

Costa Mesa

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Re “OPEC Boost in Output Won’t Cut Gas Prices,” June 22:

The sudden but expected promise from the OPEC countries to increase oil production does not address the essential problem for the American gasoline consumer. A boycott of one major brand across the country for two months by American consumers would get the attention of the oil executives right away. Oil companies should make a profit, but not the obscene profits that will result in runaway inflation very soon.

Even if the boycott were only 10% effective, it would send a clear message who has the real power. Remember how effective the unions are when they select one auto maker to strike while the others continue to make and sell their products.

LARRY ZINI

Camarillo