Michael Rosenthal

(4/2022) We are all shocked by the price of fuel, which seems to rise every week. The cause is not as simple as it first appears to be. When I was growing up and started driving, gasoline prices were about 33 cents a gallon, three gallons for a dollar! There was a wide range of miles per gallon depending on the vehicle, regular fuel and more expensive premium fuel, and thus there was a significant difference in cost per mile between driving a Volkswagen and driving a Cadillac. A number of factors go into the higher pump price of gasoline. Some argue that President Biden’s presidency is the cause, but prices had steeply risen before his election. Some believe, including President Biden, that the invasion of the Ukraine is a major cause of the price increases. Other blame the high 1.9 trillion cost of the coronavirus relief plan.

There is no doubt in my mind that the war in the Ukraine is a major factor in the large price increase of crude oil. Every $10 increase in the price of crude oil adds about 24 cents to the cost of a gallon of gasoline. Previous inflationary high gasoline prices were reached in 1918, 1981, and 2008.

As is obvious from the gasoline stations, the oil business is run by private companies. I was surprised to see my local gas station mysteriously recently change from Exxon to Sunoco.

Sometimes government action affects the price of gasoline. In April 2020, the cost was about $1.77 for a gallon of gas. By the time Biden became president, the price of a gallon of gas had risen to $2.38 a gallon. Administrative actions do have an effect on the cost of oil and gasoline. President Biden’s termination of the Keystone XL pipeline and his efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions significantly, specifically to 50% of the 2005 levels by 2030, has had a gasoline price impact.

There is no doubt in mind that we need to take action to minimize our negative impact of the environment through energy misuse. However, one cannot assume that such actions do not have wider consequences that should be considered.

Drilling on public lands is also an issue. President Biden issued an executive order that paused new oil and gas mining leased on government lands, but a federal judge blocked that order. Will oil prices fall by encouraging more drilling and allowing pipelines? It is not that simple. The oil market is complex. Russia and Saudi Arabia lead the United States in oil production, and of course our influence over them is minimal. The question is whether the United States will rise again to be the world’s biggest oil producer, but investors are being cautious about such investments.

The increase in United States shale oil has helped reduce dependence on foreign oil, but the difference in the oil content in different regions is also a factor. Venezuelan crude oil has, for example, high sulfur content, resulting in sulfur dioxide gas upon combustion. The bottom line here is that the United States is not an isolated island in the world energy market.

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We’ve written before about drug misuse, but antibiotic misuse is a particularly special problem. People frequently keep leftover antibiotics in their closet or medicine cabinet. Apparently it is not uncommon for people to take old pills out of the medicine cabinet, and use them in a new situation. Often self-prescription leads to use of a drug you do not need. Thus the risk of side effects, some of which can be dangerous, increases. One also can develop resistance to the drug that might be really needed some time later. People also sometimes self-medicate with drugs that are left over from a previous illness or which belonged to a different family member. There’s a lot of chemistry beyond the use of these drugs. Drugs prescribed for bacterial infections may be very specific and utilizing proper dosage level is also an important factor. Some antibiotics have serious side effects. Clindamycin raises the possibility of an infection by destroying good gut bacteria.

Other drugs are dangerous after their expiration time. One example is tetracycline which can cause kidney damage after it has expired, and they may react with over the counter drugs you are taking. It is thus important to have a physician’s approval of the drug combination you are taking, especially when powerful prescription drugs are involved.

It is also not a good idea to buy drugs online or from untrained sellers, such as those at a flea market or from a friend at the beach. You should always buy from a registered pharmacist at an approved pharmaceutical facility to be safe as well as effective in use.

A phenomenon known as antibiotic resistance is also very important. More and more drug resistant strains of bacteria tend to develop.

So, to sum it up: Throw away old antibiotics and don’t share them with others. If you haven infection you suspect is bacterial, see your physician.

Don’t take drugs if you don’t need them. You don’t need an antibiotic for a normal temperature head cold. Give low level ailments (like a runny nose) time to heal by itself (and buy Kleenex).

One may often think of science as an objective phenomenon, allowing clear cut decisions to be made rather than having conflicting points of view that are hard to justify against one another. Though science often cannot produce all the answers, it does a lot better than many other fields of study (like political science!). My undergraduate work was in a college of the liberal arts and sciences, where we studied everything from art and music to chemistry and physics. Though I enjoyed many non-science subjects, I was drawn to things explained on firm reproducible principles, such as The Laws of Thermodynamics! After chemistry, I loved history, and I was satisfied by the fact that historical human behavior often has had predictable and reproducible outcomes. It has been very satisfying to me that our son, Nicolas, is a highly successful college history professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Read other articles by Michael Rosenthal