War is expensive. And you're footing the bill.
Right now, as I write this from my wheelchair in my small corner of the world, I'm watching numbers climb on screens — fuel prices, food costs, shipping rates — and every single digit traces back to the same rotten root: a war nobody asked for. The U.S. and Israeli conflict with Iran has choked off tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and the shockwave isn't hitting generals or politicians. It's hitting you. It's hitting the truck driver filling up his tank. It's hitting the single mother buying groceries. It's hitting me.
Let me be blunt. I don't do diplomacy-speak.
The Numbers Don't Lie — They Scream
Singapore jet fuel prices hit an all-time high of $231.42 per barrel. In Northwest Europe, jet fuel soared to $1,445.25 a metric ton — up 75% from just one week earlier. The U.S. Gulf Coast pipeline jet fuel benchmark jumped 11.4% to its highest level since October 2022.
That's not a market fluctuation. That's a detonation.
And it doesn't stop at airports. The national average for diesel in the United States surged $0.41 in a single period to $4.16 per gallon, the highest since 2023 . Gasoline hit $3.25 per gallon — the highest of the year . Even in South Korea, diesel prices climbed to 1,915.4 won per litre, now more expensive than gasoline . Brent crude blew past $90 per barrel, and international benchmarks keep rising.
You can smell the anxiety at every petrol station on the planet.
Why Diesel Hits Harder Than a Headline
Here's something most people don't think about. Diesel isn't just fuel — it's the bloodstream of the global economy. About 70% of U.S. freight travels by truck . Your bread, your medicine, your kid's school supplies — all of it rides on diesel.
Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, put it plainly: "When diesel rises as quickly as it has recently... it can begin putting noticeable upward pressure on freight costs, shipping rates, and ultimately consumer prices if it persists".
Translation? Everything gets more expensive. Not tomorrow — it's already happening.
The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly one-fifth of the world's oil supply . One-fifth. And right now, traffic through it has ground nearly to a standstill because of this conflict That's not a minor disruption. That's a tourniquet on the world's energy artery.
Who Actually Pays?
Not the people who started this.
The people who pay are the ones who always pay — ordinary families stretching budgets that were already thin. The farmer in Albania whose fertiliser costs just doubled. The airline worker in London whose job depends on Heathrow getting affordable jet fuel from the Persian Gulf . The elderly pensioner in Seoul watching diesel prices tick upward day after day .
I've spent my life in a wheelchair. I know what it feels like when the world makes decisions over your head and you absorb the consequences in your body. This war is doing that to billions of people — making decisions over their heads, and forcing them to absorb the consequences in their wallets, their stomachs, their futures.
A Physicist's Rage
I studied physics. I understand energy — how it transforms, how it flows, how it's conserved. And I can tell you: the energy being wasted on destruction right now is obscene. Every barrel of oil that costs more because of a missile fired is energy stolen from a child's education, from a hospital's generator, from a scientist's laboratory.
Science taught me to look at systems. And this system is broken on purpose.
The government warnings and reduced demand in some regions have slowed price hikes slightly , but with crude benchmarks at yearly highs, analysts expect the upward trend to continue for weeks. There's no relief coming. Not while the bombs keep falling.
So Here's What I Want to Say
Stop it.
Stop the war. Stop pretending that geopolitical chess games don't have real human costs. Stop acting surprised when fuel prices explode after you've set the world's most important shipping corridor on fire. Stop telling ordinary people to "tighten their belts" while defence budgets balloon.
I've built my life around one principle: never give up. I didn't give up when doctors said I'd never finish university. I didn't give up after brain surgery, after years of pain, after every door that closed in my face. But "never give up" means fighting for something worth having — not fighting wars that make the world poorer, hungrier, and more afraid.
The price of your war isn't measured in barrels or metric tons.
It's measured in the quiet desperation of people who did nothing wrong and can't afford to fill their cars, heat their homes, or feed their families. And that price — that price — is one none of us should be paying.
I'm Gerd Dani, founder of FreeAstroScience. I write about the universe, about science, about what it means to be human in a world that sometimes forgets. If this made you feel something, share it. Anger is only useful if it moves.
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