MAKE GAS TAXES CONFISCATORY:

 When the price per gallon goes up, our behavior changes. We drive less. We consider getting more efficient -- or even electric -- cars. We carpool. We take subways and buses. We work from home if we can. We ride bikes. Heaven forbid, we might even walk.

This isn't just theory. A think tank at San José State University in 2014, for example, observed that demand for light rail transit climbed 9.34 percent when the price per gallon exceeded $4. More than a decade ago, the Federal Highway Administration noted that in the first 10 months of 2008, Americans reduced their driving by 3.5 percent -- 90 billion miles! -- as prices at the pump rose above $4. (Yes, really. For all of our complaints now about $4-plus gas, it's not a new problem.) And a March 2022 survey by the American Automobile Association found things hadn't changed much: at $4 per gallon, 59 percent of respondents said they would "make changes to their driving habits or lifestyle." If gas were to hit $5 nationally, as it already has in some places, the number rises to 75 percent.

And when prices drop? Logically, all of that happens in reverse. We drive more, buy bigger cars, and no longer cram into public transit. And we make fun of those silly people on bikes.

So here's my big question: If climate change is such an extreme catastrophe -- one that the United Nations says will continue to render portions of the world "uninhabitable" -- and if burning fuel is a major contributor to this, why are politicians (including, and sometimes most loudly, the left wing) trying so hard to make the price of gasoline go down?

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