Today’s Globe and Mail discusses a survey of 1,500 Canadians who were asked for their opinion on the economy. The most shocking part of the survey is what people ranked as the biggest “challenges facing Canada”. The “price of gasoline” was ranked an astonishing number 2, only “the state of the health care sytem” ranked higher. That puts gas prices ahead of issues such as “education”, “crime and safety”, “reduction of poverty” and “climate change” (which is ranked way down on the list at number 11).

I’m ashamed to see price of gas as number 2 on this list. Obviously when the contest is between our personal pocketbook and a variety of social and environmental issues (including climate change itself) we put our own interests first. If high gas prices are the biggest thing we have to worry about, then everything else in our society must be faring very well indeed.

With higher gas prices, maybe we’ll see more car pooling, fewer SUVs, trips that combine errands, and even more walking/biking/blading. Every $.05 in price in gas hikes brings automatic C02 redution with it. A $2 gas price would be the best thing that ever happened to mother nature.

I’d take improvements to education, crime & safety, and poverty reduction over cheap gas prices any day.