Curse the high oil prices! We've been suffering from the continuous tug and false hopes that prices would eventually wane down. But for the past couple of months now starting 2007, the prices have gone anywhere but down. As a motorist myself, I cannot begin to recount the added costs of gas. Cars now, if you're under a tight budget, have already elevated into a luxury transportation not to be taken for granted.
Before, cruising around wherever you please, was always a welcome activity. Now we unconsciously instill Strategic Driving that is ensured to save gas. Families cutting down travel time. Families opting for economy-type cars. Now it's not a matter of status. It's a matter of survival.
All in all, certain methods are encouraged to cut costs in basic energy commodities. But looking back years before we even reached the millennium, we were energy hungry and very much capable and flexible enough to acquire and consume energy as we please. Life's long lessons about environment and economies have not taught us hard to prevent such dependence and escalation in oil. We are still suffering, worse than ever.
There are lots of factors and lots of reports why Oil prices have gone haywire. The US economy's looming recession has injected to the oil's inflation. It's funny, how US has been guzzling down oil as if it was water before. Now it's getting the better of them, amidst one of their major anchors in economic slowdowns like the mortgage/housing crisis. The effects of oil for them might have been widely analyzed and publicized, but it's no question that the Oil Crisis is a global issue that needs global solution.
OPEC countries, filthy rich countries, who supply oil to the world may have all the cards right now. They can call the shots. And apparently, they would not increase exports. That leaves all of us dependent, scrambling for other resources, which we could have done way back when we were still flexible enough to take advantage of energy. Now it's too late. Now we are pressured to look for other resources more than ever, while nursing the burden of inflation of basic commodities. It's an unfortunate decision, yet we deserve it somehow. According to the latest report, oil prices in New York climbed to 106 per barrel already. All we could ever expect is to prepare for a slight trickle of increase in our local gas station.
Aside from high energy prices, now we are experiencing yet again a major global issue. Food Shortage.
Here in the Asia Pacific, in the Philippines at least, headlines on Rice Shortage have been leaking through press. It has bothered people and we are made to accept the fact that after oil, we have food to figure out. Poor agricultural plans and reforms, high subsidies, dependence on rice imports and the ever changing attitude of climate (due to environmental effects) account for this "rice shortage."
Now this is not to be taken lightly. We're talking about food this time, a basic necessity that overlaps any energy or oil necessity. It would be much harder to control food than to control transportation expenditures.
According to some reports in Asia Pacific, some other countries that are established exporters of rice, have been experiencing shortages themselves. Like Vietnam, the second highest exporter of rice, has been limiting and decreasing their rice exports. It's a case of every man for himself...in this case, every country.
Regrets. Regrets. Things that we should have considered before, when these issues were not yet issues, now begin to haunt us.
Whatever happened to alternative energy? Massive bio-fuel implementation?
Whatever happened to agriculture reforms? Or whatever happened to poor agricultural land planning? Have we all made lands to mini-suburbs without improving rice method productions?
Maybe our priorities change over time, but I believe there are certain priorities that should escape the top list. Energy and food are a couple of them.
And also, brace yourself. Last night, I was watching Discovery Channel, and found out that the station will be airing a special documentary show about the shortage of safe potable drinking water. I sigh.
What's next? Air per Bubble?
I fear for my generation. I fear for my younger brothers' generation. I fear for the generation that have not been born yet.
Let's say we have alternatives already, isn't it probable that it would just cover us for a few decades and cause problems for us in the future? We are known to do the bandage remedy when everything's worse already. It's an endless cycle to create and search for better alternatives. But what can we do? We're caught up in this race against nature, hunger and inconvenience.
Sometimes I wish all people might harbor this fear. Maybe that's all we need to turn around what's happening in the world. It might make us more sensible and more practical. It might make us lose the drama and insensitivity to the world. It might make us more sustainable.
Sadly, that's what some of us have been doing since ages, but majority turn a blind eye. Well I think it's about time that we do our own sacrifices. But unless if you don't have fear, these things should not affect you at all. In that case, you shouldn't have read this entry after all.
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