With gas prices at bend over and take it highs you would think it might curb American fuel consumption.

Not really! Most people will drive a little less, get only a half a tank on the weekends, maybe try a carpool once or twice. In the end habits will not change much. We will grumble a little more while filling up our SUV’s and wait for prices to come back down.

We cannot help it, Americans love oil! The U.S. is the leading consumer of oil on the planet, sucking up nearly 30 million barrels a day.

While most of it is going in the tank, petroleum products are a much larger part of our lives than you might think. Without oil many of the things that make our lives convenient would not exist.

From the credit card you bought your gas with to the bags you carried your groceries home in, if it is Plastic, Nylon or Styrofoam you can thank oil for it. There are more parts on your car made from petroleum than there is gas in the tank.

This love of crude goes even deeper. Oil is an American legacy and has been part of the romanticism of the United States since the mid-1800′s.

It is how the Gods of American Industrial History were born; Bissel, Drake, Pratt, Rockefeller and of course Clampett all own their place in the books to oil and the billions it made them.

It is part of the American dream, the land of opportunity, dig a hole and strike it rich. And as it turns out the streets really are paved with gold, black gold that is.

However when you consider that only around 5 million barrels the 30 million used is produced in the U.S. you can see how this love affair gets complicated.

The U.S. has to import most of the oil it needs to accommodate our rich lifestyle. This need for outside fulfillment is a costly matter.

The current soaring gas prices are not the first bump in the road we’ve had, we have been burned before. Just in the last few decades there has been the Oil Embargo of 1973, the Iran crisis in ’79 and the Iraq War in ’91. All hit Americans where they feel it most – in the wallet.

But there is a much much higher price being paid than the one at the pump. In order to secure and protect the foreign oil supplies American lives are being lost. People are literally dying so that we can fill our gas tanks.

You would think that when thousands of American lives are being lost and our government has to make questionable alliances with terrorist nations, we would say to ourselves; “Geez, maybe we should find an alternative to oil!”

Not at all! While others develop alternation fuel technology, Americans look for new places to drill. While Europeans have a fleet of hydrogen fuelcell powered cars on the road, we have the third generation of the Hummer.

Over the last hundred or so years we have gone from an Oil Fueled Romance to a Crude Dependency. Like most relationships we have grown comfortable and take oil for granted.

When things are good we think nothing of it. When things are bad we seek desperate solutions and quick fixes. As in the 70′s, 80′s, and 90′s, we are now hurriedly producing more fuel efficient cars in response to the higher gas prices.

But if history is an indicator, once the gas prices come back down, cars will get bigger and thirstier and Americans will feel free to once again drive to across the street and leave the motor running while they go in to get some milk.

We as American consumers need to break the cycle and get out of this abusive relationship. We need to embrace permanent alternative fuel sources and elect to drive more efficient cars.

We need to actively recycle plastics and other petroleum based products in order to reduce the demand on new manufacturing as well as use more environmentally friendly alternatives.

These are thing as Americans we can do right now. There is no need to wait for legislation or the government to hold our hands. We just need to make some lifestyle changes and a change in thinking from one of protecting our wallets to one of protecting our future.