Is Your Tank Half Empty or Half Full?

Harry Campbell

By NICOLE BELSON GOLUBOFF, DANIEL GROSS, ALLISON ARIEFF, MICHAEL PATERNITI, ROBERT GOODMAN, ROBERT B. REICH, TOM VANDERBILT, ANNELIESE ROHRER, JAMIE LINCOLN KITMAN and KAREN KARBO

Published: June 29, 2008

High gas prices have had some obvious immediate effects on Americans: Hummer sales are down, commuting by public transit is up, airlines are charging for nonessentials, like baggage. But if $4 gas (or higher) is here to stay, we can expect our lives to change in other ways, too. The Op-Ed page asked 10 writers to reflect on the consequences — unexpected, unnoticed, unrealized, good, bad or indifferent — of really expensive fuel.