If you ventured from Fairbanks for Spring break, you undoubtedly found that traveling this year was much more costly than years past.

Climbing fuel prices are a source of frustration and discussion for anyone who purchases goods and services. Even if you bike and shop at the transfer station, energy affects the price of food or other goods you buy. Obviously, this single commodity is relevant to everyone, but even more so in Alaska where so much state revenue and business is reliant on the oil industry. Over the past few weeks, oil futures have exceeded record highs, even for real adjusted prices.

Since securing a position at an oil corporation after graduation, I have been reading a lot about oil and energy. “The Oil Factor,” by Stephen and Donna Leeb is a book aimed at helping investors hedge their investments as to avoid the economic downturn that could result from an oil crisis. The book takes a practical approach to what energy means in our lives and what the future will bring.

What I find reading this book over the past week interesting is that it was published in 2005. One chapter cited examples of ways people had to cut back when gasoline hit $2 per gallon high. The book correctly predicted that in the near future we would look back at what in 2004 seemed like “expensive energy” and lament its relative affordability.

In Doug Reynold’s class on nonrenewable resources last year, we learned that the price of this finite resource could continue to rise and it would continue to be consumed until something else takes its place. I thought one of the most important things “The Oil Factor” mentioned that alternatives could have been sought for oil when it was $4 per barrel, but it takes painfully high prices for us to take alternatives seriously.

Learning these things makes the future look pretty dismal, but there could be a silver lining to this situation. Basic laws of supply and demand tell us that an increase in prices results in a decrease in demand. This means that market-driven conservation could cut consumption, reducing carbon emissions. The current sad situation in the financial sector is also decreasing spending. A recession-influenced decrease in buying goods in services eventually results in lower carbon emissions.