Ryan Nelson: Low gas prices are fueling poor economic choices

The first step to solving any problem is admitting that there is one. For drivers in the United States, it’s finally time to come clean: We love big cars, and we cannot lie.

The SUV has long been the symbol of American suburbia – big enough for the nuclear family, the pets and all the vacation equipment necessary.

However, over the past couple years, a heightened awareness of the effects of these machines on our environment and more importantly, our wallets, has led to a gradual weaning off the cars. It was an encouraging trend – up until right now.

Even in car-mad Los Angeles, gas prices are getting as low as $2.60 a gallon. Those prices have freed up money we didn’t have before and have led many economists to predict a strong rebound for our collectively diminished spending power.

The only problem: We’re spending it on the wrong things. Sales of SUVs, trucks, and “muscle cars” like the Ford Mustang are up – way up. At a time when scientists are warning that instant action is needed to avoid catastrophic change in the climate, we’ve taken two steps backward.

Which is why, as the eventual, inevitable inheritors of a planet that promises to be hotter and more meteorologically variable, it’s up to students to maintain their commitment to keeping off of fossil fuels.

Some context: In a twist that Jimmy Carter wishes came 40 years earlier, actions taken by OPEC have inadvertently benefited American consumers. OPEC has gone on a mission to destroy the U.S. fracking industry, its greatest domestic competition. They’ve done this by flooding the market with crude oil – thus lowering the price to levels fracking companies can’t compete with.

If those savings had been used in a responsible manner, this could have been a fantastic boon for consumers. However, it’s evident that, as a total population, we have yet to learn some basic rules of economics: Prices don’t stay the same forever.

So now the impetus falls on us. Positive steps have already been taken by students at UCLA – a USAC resolution calling on the University of California to divest from fossil fuels, local campus initatives to reduce consumption and trash, and the UC’s large-scale purchase of solar power all represent a good start.

But now, it’s imperative that we don’t allow ourselves – despite what the rest of the country is doing – to fall back into bad habits. It’s more important now than ever to take the money we save and invest back in green technologies or practicing good sustainability habits. Not everyone needs to invest in solar panels on his or her house – sometimes just switching your lightbulbs works as a start.

The world is getting hotter. Ocean levels are going to rise, and with the rise will come a myriad of consequences, especially for those that continue to live near a coast – about 40 percent of the entire human population.

So the important stuff starts now. Continuing to support pushes for green technology, and making our own small sacrifices, can eventually add up to a lot of lives saved and a lot less seaside property.

And maybe, just maybe, that means giving up the Mustang keys for the Fiat, before we have to trade them all in for a boat.