Blame China!

I just suspect that there is soon going to be speculation that the growing Chinese economy and its rapidly increasing demand for oil is causing the current gas prices to go up.
So, it is the god given right of the US to use as much oil as we want, but if the Chinese start to think about it and if the Indian follow the lead tomorrow, then that is wrong! There is a real need to think about how much oil we consume here in the U.S. and whether there is anything we can do to reduce that consumption of oil. Unfortunately, everybody seems to forget about the issue whenever the prices fall or go back to their original level.

The fundamental problem is that China is following the path of the United States, and probably the world cannot afford a second United States.
----- Zhang Jia nyu, Beijing Office of Environmental Defense
New York Times, The Week in Review, March 14, 2004.

How much damage the increasing use of oil is causing to the environment is a topic of a complete new blog. As many people say, we are not running out of oil, but we are running out of the environment.