What's wrong with lower gas prices?

Plenty, as Daniel Akst pointed out in Sunday's NYT. Here's his astute premise:

Anything that reinforces the role of fossil fuels — particularly oil — as the industrial world’s primary energy source is bad, not good. Anything that prolongs the life of the internal combustion engine is a negative, not a positive. Anything that makes it cheaper to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is cause for mourning rather than celebration.

What we need is not lower oil prices but higher ones — significantly higher, enough to deter consumption and make us look seriously at alternatives.

For months, we’ve been learning a lot about the effects of global warming and the importance of reducing greenhouse gases. And legislation just passed by the legislature will do just that. Behind all those concerns is the financial imperative of skyrocketing gas prices. But if gas falls to $2 or $2.50 a gallon, there's less incentive to develop alternatives. This has been a pattern in energy policy over the years – just when you think we’re finally getting serious about moving away from oil, the price of oil drops. Putting development on the back burner just delays the process.

Gas update: Prices keep falling. The latest survey by the Energy Department shows that for the week ended Sept. 18, the average gallon of self-serve regular in Los Angeles was $2.863, down from $2.970 a week ago.