There's been a lot of moaning about gasoline prices lately. People are outraged that their poor choices about where to live and what car to drive are coming back to haunt them. I guess it's easy to make poor choices when 99% of the people around you are making the same ones.

The fact of the matter - the cold, hard, indisputable fact - is that oil is a finite resource. I smile when I hear an expert on TV say "we're not running out or anything". Uh, actually, we've been running out since we burned the very first drop. They're not making anymore of the stuff.

Oil is the most precious of natural resources. It is a highly concentrated, flexible energy source. Nothing that we know of can replace it.

If you haven't discovered the theory of peak oil yet, I highly recommend you google the term. Another good introduction is the movie The End of Suburbia. Reserve it from the Edmonton Public Library here. Or buy it from Earth's General Store.

The peak oil theory suggests that we are at or approaching the day when we can no longer keep increasing the amount of oil that we produce each year. Once we hit the peak of oil production, we will produce less oil each and every year from then on. For evidence of a near-term peak in oil production, look no further than the help wanted sign at your neighbourhood 7/11. The mad scramble to develop the Alberta tarsands - probably the dirtiest, most expensive source of oil in the world - is happening because we're running short of the easy, cheap oil that was plentiful in the 80s and 90s.

So the next time you feel outraged about the "high" cost of gasoline, please consider that there is no ceiling on gas prices. Try to imagine your life at $5.00/litre. Could you cope? $1.14 for gasoline is cheap. We need to start making better choices that lead to us burning less gasoline. The good news is that driving less saves you money, makes you healthier, and saves the planet.

Climate change and peak oil will be the drivers of the 21st century. Edmontonians would do well to start acting like it.