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Rising gas prices will cause an economic depression, not just in the US, but worldwide, unless our dependence on oil and other nonrenewable energy sources is reversed within the next three to five years. The cause of this depression will not be the increased expense of getting around in our vehicles and heating our homes. The depression will instead be triggered by our near total dependence on petroleum and petroleum-based products to create our jobs, deliver our food, and maintain our social infrastructure. Society as we know it will collapse rapidly unless we make radical changes, and unless we do this quickly. Here's why:

WE DEPEND ON OIL TO GROW AND DELIVER OUR FOOD.

Food prices are already spiking due to the high cost of production and delivery. Milk is delivered to processing plants in huge tanker trucks, and the delivered again to grocery stores once packaged for distribution and sale. As the price of petroleum rises, the price of diesel fuel for the delivery trucks skyrockets. Five years ago a gallon of milk in the US cost about $1.89. Now the same gallon costs about $4.15. The same trend applies to produce, canned goods, boxed cereals, nearly everything we eat. Very little food is produced locally and even fewer consumers buy food directly from local growers. When the cost of inflation is calculated by the US government, it leaves out food and fuel on the rationale that these prices fluctuate and skew the results negatively. But people can't live without food and fuel. When these prices rise rapidly, we all feel poorer because we are, no matter what the government does with its statistics.

WE DEPEND ON OIL TO CREATE OUR JOBS.

If you were to make a list of all the products you use in your daily life that require no petroleum or petroleum-based products for their manufacture, it would be a very short list. At the very least, most of the products we make, buy, and use are delivered to us in petroleum fueled semi-trucks. The factories that make them are fueled by petroleum. If the product contains plastic, which many, many products do, its a good bet a petroleum derivative is used in the material itself. We are already losing manufacturing jobs to China and Mexico at a rate that is hurting our economy and laying off thousands in the US. When China and India and Mexico and other countries can't get enough petroleum either, they will go the same way the US is going. Even white collar jobs suffer when factories disappear. Banks are in trouble already, and not

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