Yesterday, I had been driving back from school when I noticed I was running low in gas. I had a quarter of a tank left, so I had been hoping it wouldn’t be a sucker-punch to my wallet. Pulling up to a pump just behind a large pick-up, I stepped out of my car, turned off the engine, looked at the price and felt light-headed. “I might as well just walk to Longmont,” I thought as I reluctantly fed the machine my card. In the broad-spectrum of gas prices, $3.69 for regular fuel was far from the worst (most certainly when compared to California’s $7) though, filling up about three-quarters of a tank left me heartbroken and with $42 less in my wallet.

Most have noticed how the gas prices have rocketed, reaching a $4.17 average. This is a $.55 increase from last week. The cause? Well, one of the most notable, is the war in Ukraine. Russia and other Middle East oil producers have refused to trade as much oil as they once did with America. So, naturally, the prices would begin to rise. Jeez, and I thought $3 was bad.

I can hardly believe that gas used to be only about $2 and now the new average is over $4. Absolutely wild. Experts claim these prices are here to stay all throughout the summer, and it’s probably going to get worse. President Joe Biden claims he plans to cease all oil trade with Russia, as a boycott. However, if that happens (while great in theory) prices are going to get really bad, really fast. Russia imports about 8% of all oil into America. Looking at the big picture, that’s a lot. America is a big country who needs a good deal of oil to keep everybody moving, so 8% is going to be a huge hit on our gas pumps. So, who knows? My $42 worth of gas might be over $50 in a few months.