1) The most
effective way for the government to conserve energy is to increase the price of
gasoline and electricity.
Some
believe that regulation of price is the most effective method to save energy in
modern society. However, I do not agree with the statement in the topic. In my
opinion, increasing prices of energy resources is not only inefficient strategy
to achieve the goal, saving energy, but also high likelihood of market
fluctuation for the following reasons.
To
begin with, people will use gasoline and electricity as much as they have used before
even though the price is increased. It is true that government can regulate the
use of some kinds of products by control the price, but use of certain products
such as energy and food that is essential for life may not be possible to be controlled.
Once in the past, there was an influential financial crisis in South Korea due
to the sudden increase of oil price in Middle East Countries where South Korea heavily
relies on for fulfilling oil supply. The price of gasoline was surprisingly
skyrocketed, so government announced several energy saving policies toward citizen
in order to regulate oil market price. However, in reality, people spent
gasoline as usual regardless of the price because oil is necessarily for life.
It shows that regulating price of products that basically needs to live
including gasoline and electricity is not a good strategy to decrease the
amount of use.
In
addition, as far as the overall market stability is concerned, it is
undesirable to increase energy prices on the purpose of saving energy. It is
imperative that the much price of gasoline and electricity increased the higher
price customers pay for other goods as well. From making soaps to building
houses, energy resource is most crucial elements to make, convey, and sell
products, so increasing price of those energy may directly and immediately
affect on the price that customers should pay for. So, it may be harmful the
stabilization of market price of an entire nation. Not to mention, once the market
price starts to fluctuate, government should spend a lot of money and effort in
order for stabilizing it. Thus, regulating price as a means to conserve energy
is dangerous idea for a nation.
In
conclusion, I am skeptical of the argument in the topic that government should
control prices of gasoline and electricity in order to save energy; rather, I strongly
believe that increase prices of those energy resources draws huge disadvantage by
fluctuating overall market prices.