Since I came to American from Japan in 1996, the price of gas has increased almost two folds. Today, for a regular gallon of gasoline, Americans are paying an average of 3 dollars and 21 cents. Few Americans could even fathom the days were such a gallon only cost 99 cents, a mere 10 years ago. The current gas crisis is undermining a large part of people’s freedom, the freedom to drive.

Some analysts state that labor strikes, hurricanes, and terrorist threats are driving up prices at the pump. Unfortunately, these chance occurrences are not devastating the crude oil prices at a long-term range. It is true that 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina did contribute to skyrocketing oil prices, but these upshots usually stemmed over a short period and time and stabilized. It is also known to many scientists that our world’s fossil fuel supply is being reduced at a dramatic rate. The easiest wells around the world are becoming depleted and abandoned oil rigs are becoming a ubiquitous sight. Prices did decrease when supply was discovered in the Gulf of Mexico in 2005, but many more discoveries are needed to bring scientists to contention about the dramatic loss of the world’s quantity of crude oil. However, the markets around the world are usually dramatically determined by human actions. Increasing amount of speculation on the oil market, therefore the increase in price could be partially due to this oil speculation extending into the long term. As mentioned above, speculators foresee increasing demand, decreasing supply, or both, leading to a long term increase in the price of oil. If speculators are wrong, current prices may actually be a price bubble, and the price could thus collapse. In July 14, 2005, a Morgan Stanley report suggested that opinions of the oil market could burst just like a bubble if indications of declining Asian demand continue.

The OPEC countries, producing a vast amount of the world’s oil supply, are residents of the most volatile region in the world. With the Iraq War and increased tension between Palestine and Israel, OPEC is again stretching their oil powered arms across the globe. The oil markets do pay attention to world affairs and right now the consensus is that the world is too unstable for a stable oil market. The businessmen that do run the business cannot risk massive blows in oil supply like the fiery one that occurred in the 1991 Gulf War. Therefore, oil prices will continue to rise and affect people in the World.

Every year, as summer approaches, people stare at the corner signs and frown upon another cent added to their precious commodity. Heavily hit by this burden are the trucking industries, and the delivery industries, taxi services, and even police and fire departments. Common people, who love their full-dependent cars and SUVs, hate this oil crisis like the plague. Now, we are exploring alternative energy sources, such as ethanol, hydrogen, even, solar energy. When these alternative energy sources will be able to apply to our routine life to completely replace the oil has become a critical issue we have to think about?