A Hard Habit to Break, Even With Gas at $10 a Gallon. By Elisabeth Rosenthal, NYTimes, August 29, 2008. "Ten dollars a gallon may seem unthinkable to American drivers still smarting from the spike in gas prices to around $4 a gallon... High oil prices and high taxes on gas pushed the average price of gasoline to new heights in much of Europe this summer... Gas prices have persuaded some people to drive less. Traffic on the Eurostar train that links London and Paris was up 21 percent in the first three months of 2008. Gas purchases in Italy dropped 10 percent compared with the year before. Sales of gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles have plunged across the continent, just as they have in the United States. But, at least so far, there are few signs of the wholesale shift away from current driving habits that environmental economists contend is needed for European countries to meet emissions control targets... Partly because of high gas prices here, European cars are already far more efficient than those sold in the United States. The average new European car gets 40 miles to the gallon, double the average for new cars sold in America. Even so, total carbon emissions from all forms of transportation in Europe are rising. They are about a quarter higher today than they were 20 years ago, while emissions from industry have declined in the same period."
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