Oil hitting $130 a barrel may be worrying for the economy but I think there is a silver lining there. This would surely spur the big corporations and governments to act faster on alternative energy sources - and with the current expanding consciousness about the environment, we can confidently hope those alternative energy sources will also be greener. That last 100-150 years of development - powered mostly by fossil fuels - has already burdened nature with toxins that may take hundreds of years to clean up. We need to make a start somewhere to reduce and roll back the amount of those toxins. At the very worst, this kind of galloping oil prices can push the world's economy into a recession, and cut down on the huge amount of pollution we create daily.
At the same time, I have read reports of US politicians threatening to punish China and India over over-use of dirty fuels. I agree that what India and China are doing is a bad thing, but that is because these Asian nations are now following the crassly materialist path of development shown by the West. And man for man, people in these countries pollute less and consume less -- at least four fith less than the average American. So who should be punished?!
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