The society’s economic engine is wedded to fossil fuel energy resources.

Americans represent five percent of the world population, but we consume 35 percent of the global energy resources.

Such disparity is not sustainable in the long run, particularly in an increasingly multi-polar world. As countries around the world lift their societies out of poverty, as new middles classes emerge, they expect to enjoy a better life. Consequently the demand for consumables rises.

Among the countries with rapidly growing economies are China and India whose combined population exceeds two billion, or one third of humanity. These countries naturally require substantially more energy resources in order to grow their economies.

The world’s proven fossil energy resources, especially petroleum, cannot supply a demand that is 40 percent higher than the present level.

In the coming decades, the demand will keep rising to that point despite conservation measures worldwide. A global cooperative action is needed now to deal with that scenario. If countries with emerging economies were to consume at half the rate of the United States, wars may ensue. Indeed this may already be happening.

Analysts have theorized that the U.S. occupation of Iraq is rooted in control of energy resources, not in fighting terrorism or in saving humanity from weapons of mass destruction. What would be a fair sharing of the resources?

That every country eventually gets to use, more or less, equal amounts per capita?

Or that the affluent few continue to consume the lion’s share and somehow ‘manage’ the needs of the many poor?

In reality, the solution lies somewhere in between the two extremes.

One result is certain.

We Americans will be compelled to make serious changes in the way our society functions, in order to adjust to the emerging realities.

It is possible that new energy sources will be harnessed in future.

At the moment, however, the promise of sources such as solar and wind power does not compare favorably with fossil fuels.

Moreover, it is impossible to completely transform an oil-based economy to another within two or three decades.

For a long time, the world will be substantially dependent on oil. Therefore, the possibility of global conflicts is real.

These are long term problems that require long term solutions such as conservation, research, re-thinking nuclear power etc.

The immediate hardship facing the American consumer is that the average price per gallon of gasoline is more than four dollars.

This hardship is not the result of free market forces or of supply and demand dynamics. Actual demand does not explain the rise in crude oil prices from $50 a barrel in January 2007 to nearly $140 a barrel today. In fact, oil supply on the world market remains plentiful.

There is no shortage. Unfortunately, speculators have been allowed to manipulate the price upwards unchecked and unregulated, squeezing the American consumer. In the absence of such rigging, the real price of oil should stand between $50 and $60 a barrel.

The Department of Energy and the Congress must act to protect the consumer through regulatory control of the speculative pricing of oil futures.

Consumers should demand that Congress must also drop all the indirect subsidies and tax loopholes that benefit big oil companies which have registered record profits again this year, for the fourth consecutive year.