Transportaton costs contribute hugely to all costs and have played a major role in reshaping American life for the worse in the past 10 years.

Everything we buy is shipped, and shipping costs have risen dramatically, because fuel costs have risen dramatically, since 2000.

Consider also that shipping costs include more than just carrying the finished product to the retail market. They also include carrying the raw materials to the factories, and the partially-completed products, or various products component parts, from factories and ports to other factories where further assembly and production takes place.

Take, for example, a six-pack of beer. The ingredients are shipped in raw form. Then they’re packaged in bulk and shipped again. Then they’re made into beer and shipped again. in bulk. Then they’re broken down into individual stores’ orders and shipped again. The same holds true for the beer’s packaging: bottles, cans, cardboard. So, by the time the retail consumer buys the six-pack, it’s ingredients and packaging have been shipped several times, and shipping costs have increased dramatically due to increased fuel costs.

Money that employers–specifically in the trucking industry, where I work, but in every industry–might spend on compensation is instead going to higher shipping costs, i.e. higher fuel costs. We’ve all taken pay cuts, and many employers have not hired more workers, because they’ve had to spend the money on higher shipping costs.

Diesel fuel costs remain 15-25 percent higher than those of regular gasoline.

Furthermore, consumers’ personal fuel costs are also taking a much bigger percentage of their budgets. In 2000 consumers paid $20 or less to fill their gas tanks, and now they’re paying $50-$75.

The country runs on fossil fuel, and no reasonable alternative will be available for a while, especially when it comes to the vehicles that deliver everything we buy. No other means of propulsion can compete meaningfully with big diesel engines. (In case you’re wondering: I heard this at an alternative-engine symposium provided by Daimler in Germany. Car- and small-truck engines can be adaquately replaced, but the big diesel is the most cost-effective means for hauling the trillions of tons of wholesale and retail goods we buy every year.)

So it becomes clear that the president’s hesitation to provide the nation with the fuel it needs creates an accute burden that we’re all carrying. It becomes clear that the EPA’s aggressive resistance to the free market’s attempts to provide more and cheaper fuel is creating and increasing hardships for all Americans, especially considering that advances in mining and pipeline-construction technology have largely eliminated the threats from which the president and the EPA say they’re protecting us.

Furthermore, it’s impossible to run a heavily-populated, industrialized nation like the United States pollution-free, or without impacting the natural environment in some way.

For example, the air conditioners cooling and heating EPA headquarters pump thousands of tons of hot air into the atmosphere every year. The energy plants that supply EPA headquarters with electricity also poison the air. The cars EPA employees take to work–including, however indirectly, those run on electricity–also pollute the air. Should the EPA deny its employees heating and cooling, electricity and cars?

Should we, for that matter, get serious about “saving the earth” and simply ban all air conditioners, electricity and cars?

Of course, the last time I checked, the earth was winning in its supposed fight against humanity. I know the contemporary knowledge is that humanity is destroying the earth. But for a couple million years (human history) the earth has been dealing us tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, blizzards. ice ages, tornadoes, fires, volcanic eruptions, et cetera, et cetera. The score in this so-called contest is probably something like earth, two trillion and–seeing as the earth is still here and doing about as good as it ever was–humanity zero.

The earth has routinely, in its four-billion-year history, wiped out entire species, poisoned its own atmosphere, lakes, rivers and oceans, flooded itself, frozen itself, heated itself, rearranged its land and water masses, and it’s still doing these things, and it’s just fine.

The idea that humans will destroy this planet in just a few thousand years, when we can’t even begin to match the massively dramatic forces it has unleashed on itself and on us and other species for billions of years, is unsound at best.

What’s more, humanity has adapted to and survived many dramatic climate changes. Antarctica wasn’t always and will not remain frozen, Scandinavian lands won’t always be really cold most of the time, and Florida won’t always be above sea level, and humanity will adapt and surive as it always has. (The smart money is buying up oastal property in Greenland and Nova Scotia and laying plans for tropical retirement properties.)

So, in the final analysis, restricting our country’s ability to take care of itself–i.e. preventing domestic fossil-fuel mining and piping–seems either incredibly misguided, to the point of craziness (not fun, party-time “crazy,” but crazy as in handicapped), or a deliberate attempt to depress our national economy and aid our world-wide competitors.

Either way, it has to stop. Drill here, and drill now, and build the pipelines, and let America’s wonderfully productive economic engine, from which billions–including those who seem to hate it–have benefited, provide for Americans.