In the past, I’ve noted how elites in the Bos/Wash/NY/Hyde Park corridor have shown a benign indifference to soaring gas prices. Mind you, I’m a self-confessed arugula-munching/latte swilling Boston-based elitist myself who visits his local filling station on average a bit more than once a month. Thus, I’m well positioned to explain how the pain that high gas prices have visited on some parts of the country hasn’t been felt universally.

Well, worry no more you rural types who have become wage slaves to the gas pump. The environmental do-gooders have arrived on the scene, and they’re here to help:

Average motorists in Mississippi spent nearly 8 percent of their incomes on gasoline in 2007 and drivers in South Carolina and Georgia spent more than 7 percent, according to the report released on Tuesday by environmental group the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Meanwhile, drivers in the Northeast spent the least amount of their incomes on fuel with Connecticut motorists paying just over 3 percent. Drivers in New York spent about 3.3 percent and motorists in Massachusetts spent about 3.5 percent…

The report, called "Fighting Oil Addiction: Ranking States' Oil Vulnerability and Solutions for Change," ranked the states for their setting of fuel conservation measures like incentives for buying fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles, slowing suburban sprawl, and targets for reducing driving.

I hope this is crystal clear to all you backwards Mississippians who are burning fossil fuels like you’re Al Gore or something. Stop all of your suburban sprawling.

Boy, the NRDC sure has it figured out. If only Georgia had more incentives for buying hybrids! And for those of you who feel the pain at the pump, have you considered stopping your complaining and just moving to Washington DC and becoming a blogger for a living? You could bike to work!

One wonders it it’s ever occurred to the National Resource Defense Council that people in Mississippi aren’t burning so much gas because they engage in a lot of hot-rodding in their vintage Sedan Devilles. Then again, an appealing sort of myopia has always been the environmental lobby’s most appealing characteristic.