The price of gas in a global economy

As the war against Ukraine continues, the world has presented a perhaps unprecedented united front. Across the globe, economic sanctions were promised and then delivered, even as Vladimir Putin took his sense of embattled entitlement all the way to the threat of global nuclear war.

Meanwhile, here in the United States, public debate has focused on two things: the price of gas and whether or not Republicans support Putin’s actions. Both hit close to home. Americans are reeling from a sharp rise in consumer prices in general and gas prices in particular, and our political divides seem ever more extreme.

The perhaps surprising fact is that virtually all of us have supported Putin. Like other despots of oil-producing countries, Putin has a war chest because we use Russian oil to drive to the grocery store and to heat our homes. This is the reality of a global, fossil fuel–based economy, an economy in which Russia produces one of every ten barrels of oil. Americans consume three times as much oil per capita as Russians do; we also consume almost twice as much oil as we produce. That makes us buyers on the global market, and Russia is selling.