The recent price hike of 30 sen for our petrol has caused much dissatisfaction towards the government. They are angry and I can't blame them since we mostly see our government officials in their expensive cars being whizzed away with their police escort, sirens blaring while others are stuck in jams cursing their fortune.

But the problem is most of us are indiscriminate guzzlers of everything from oil to electricity. We Malaysians do tend to contribute to the growing oil crisis - look around and you'll see what I mean. Most Malaysians are way too selfish to share that space in their cars to go to work with their co-workers - car-pooling is a big no-no for a lot of us people. Most tend to cite security reasons to avoid it while others ... look, let's just put it this way - Malaysian don't car-pool, finito

According to most experts, the world will run out of oil by as early as 2047 but not before making the price of oil per barrel jump at least 100 fold. That's a lot of money for an addiction.

The biggest and ugliest thing that concerns me now is the fact that everybody on this planet has yet to realise the sheer importance of this pending crisis and the need to buckle up our belts now because we are going to be knocked out cold even way before that aforementioned date.

The sad fact is we all just love our addiction on oil and we don't care. Why? Because everybody has gone 'Malaysian'. I know this is a suicidal sort of a statement here but Malaysians are notorious for doing things at the last minute. Some examples are the rush to pay their traffic summonses (Ops Warta), the MyKad registration and submitting the Income Tax return forms.

All of the above done at the11th hour. This is a fact. And now the whole world has 'gone 'Malaysian' with the oil crisis as well. Not many are concerned about alternative energy sources but more on the 'bling-bling' cars that our celebrated personalities move around with ...oi vey. And if you look at some of the satellite images of the world at night, you can see that it is a very well lit planet from Albuquerque to Zambezi

Safer alternative energy sources such as wind power, solar panels, hydroelectric dams, etc, are already in hand but sadly, they are far and few between in usage. The equatorial belt receives at least 97 percent of the direct sunlight and the countries there could easily be the biggest electricity generators if only they could get their houses in order with regards to corruption and cronyism. Did I mention Malaysia is on the equatorial belt?

Anyway, Malaysia could be having several aces up its sleeve if our government and we the people take a more serious look at the oil crisis and consider alternative energy projects for the betterment of mankind. Then just maybe being 'Malaysian' just might be a positive thing.