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Scary Internet Connection Under Investigation Tonight; Rising Price of Oil and Possible Energy Crisis
Aired November 11, 2007 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TONY HARRIS: A school massacre in Finland. A similar plot foiled in Pennsylvania. A scary Internet connection under investigation tonight.
And more dirty dealing on Craigslist. A man masquerading as a woman to lure two child victims. It's enough to make you turn your computer off for good. The warning signs and how to shield your children from the dark side of the Internet.
Feel like you're paying too much for gas again? Get used to it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The era of cheap gas is over. Full stop, there's too much competition in the world. There's not enough supply in the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: The rising price of oil and an energy crisis that may not be far off. We talk to the experts and find solutions. It's the "Trouble with Oil," a CNN special report.
John Mccain may wish he kept his mom home for this interview.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's a Mormon and the Mormons in Salt Lake City had caused that scandal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: The rest of what she said that made this presidential contender cringe.
Comedy Central's Rob Riggle helps put smiles on the faces of our military men and women in Iraq. And here at home, the comedian/military man shares his Veterans Day thoughts with me tonight in our "Sunday Spotlight."
Hello, good evening, everyone. I'm Tony Harris. They lived on different continents and in many ways, had little in common. In another time, the gunman in last week's school shooting in Finland and the Pennsylvania teen accused of plotting a similar attack would never have come in contact. But tonight, there are troubling signs that in this age of the Internet, their lives may have intersected online. Here's CNN's Jim Acosta.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Before he gunned down eight people at a Finland school, and before he left this cryptic YouTube warning of his campus attack, Finnish authorities suspect he was a visitor to this Myspace page glorifying the Columbine massacre. It was there, investigators in Finland say, where Alvinon (ph) may have chatted with a 14-year old Pennsylvania boy, named Dillon Cossey, who police say planned his own school shooting outside Philadelphia last month.
BRUCE CASTOR, MONTGOMERY CO. DISTRICT ATTORNEY: It's very sketchy. The Finnish authorities have said that there might be this connection, but they don't cite makes them think that.
ACOSTA: The district attorney handling Cossey's case says he just learned of the alleged connection in an article that appears in "The Times of London" newspaper. The story quotes Finnish authorities saying the Pennsylvania teen may have used a previously unknown screen name, shadow19462, to visit that MySpace page dedicated to Columbine killers Dillon Kleibold and Eric Harris.
CASTOR: We have a special unit of forensic detectives that deal with just computer cases. I asked them to tear down the computer and check for this other screen name.
J. DAVID FARRELL, COSSEY'S ATTORNEY: Knowing my client as I've gotten to know him, I would be very surprised if he were engaged in any true planning or encouraging behavior to an individual in Finland who was planning some sort of school attack.
ACOSTA: Cossey's attorney says any connection between his client and the Finland school shooters should serve as a wake-up call to parents that troubled teens may be socializing on websites that lionize campus killers.
FARRELL: Surely it's disturbing that online, there is this hero worship of two killers.
ACOSTA: And is that poisoning the minds of some of these kids out there?
FARRELL: I would say it reinforces their alienation and feeds into their violent fantasies, absolutely. It's poisoning them.
ACOSTA: Finnish authorities caution they have yet to definitively link to two teens saying "we're not in a state to confirm anything at this moment." If there is a connection, it raises the prospect that authorities could prevent the school shootings of the future by scouring the websites dedicated to campus killings from the past.
Jim Acosta, CNN, Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HARRIS: Crime and Craigslist, an investigation is underway tonight in Reno, Nevada. Police say that's where this 32-year old man posed as a 20-year-old woman online and used the Internet bulletin board site to lure two teen boys to his home. This is not a pretty story.
The boys say Justin Jason Hunter got them drunk. They passed out. One says when he awoke, Hunter was molesting him. It's crimes like these our next guest Parry Aftab tries to prevent. She is the executive director of wiredsafety.org. And she is joining us tonight from New York. Parry, as always, great to talk to you again.
PARRY AFTAB, WIREDSAFETY.ORG: Always, Tony.
HARRIS: Well, Perry, let's go through it again. What must we parents tell our kids about using the Internet, particularly when it comes to information sharing?
AFTAB: Well, we need to teach our kids not to share too much information. But in this case, Tony, these kids went willingly to a meeting with someone they thought was an adult female. And they kept that information from their parents.
HARRIS: Boy, oh, boy. But I have to ask you the other reality here, it seems to me, is that we parents, in many cases, are so far behind our children in our understanding of the technology and in the language that kids are using online. I want to ask you, is there any help for us out there?
AFTAB: Absolutely. That's what wiredsafety is all about. I've got 13,000 unpaid volunteers all over the world. We'll teach parents what they need to know. We have a new program called "Wired Moms." It's going to be very simple. This is a computer. This I how you turn the computer on. This is how you talk to your kids. And we're even going to have a new website called havethetalk.com, teaching our kids to be able to talk to their parents...
HARRIS: Yes.
AFTAB: And parents to talk to talk to the kids.
HARRIS: That's good, Parry. For someone in your work, I'm wondering, are you surprised to hear that the young man who took so many lives in Finland may have been part of a network people fascinated with the Columbine shooters?
AFTAB: Absolutely not. On social networks, a lot of these people are finding each other. They're going to the sites that encourage these kinds of things and they're learning how to do it often online. The good thing is MySpace keeps all this information. So if Finnish authorities find the information, MySpace will let them know when they visited that page.
HARRIS: Parry Aftab. Parry, great to see you. Thanks for your time tonight.
AFTAB: Thank you.
HARRIS: The price of oil is within striking distance of $100 a barrel. Now that's a big number, but what does it mean for you and me? Higher gas prices, larger heating bills, even more expensive milk? And guess what? There is no help from Washington in sight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are not going to affect the price at your pump, not going to happen. And it may be a good thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: It's the "Trouble with Oil," a special report tonight at 10:30 Eastern only in the NEWSROOM.
Maybe, says San Francisco. No way, says Washington. Free clean needles for addicts and a safe place to use their drugs. Could it be a drug project in Canada be a model for the United States? The story ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: A supervised injection site for heroin addicts? Vancouver is the first North American city to provide heroin users with a medical environment to shoot up. Could U.S. cities follow suit? CNN's Jason Carroll investigates.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She's desperate, unemployed, surviving on handouts and hooked on heroin. How often do you shoot up every day?
LORRAINE TREPANIER, HEROIN USER: Well, I get up in the morning and always make sure I have at least one down or a half down.
CARROLL: And what's that? A down?
TREPANIER: It's the heroin.
CARROLL: Lorraine Trepanier brings her drugs to a controversial, but legal facility called Incite here in Vancouver, Canada.
TREPANIER: The smaller one's the heroin. And this is the cocaine.
CARROLL: As unbelievable as it may sound, an estimated 700 addicts a day, just like Trepanier, are given syringes and allowed to inject their own drugs here under a nurse's supervision. The theory? Reduced risk of overdose and spread of diseases like HIV by giving addicts clean needles and a safe place to use them.
LIZ EVANS, PHS COMMUNITY SERVICES: People need to be kept alive long enough in order to get treatment. We know that people's chances of getting into detox and treatment are doubled by having access into the site.
CARROLL: Organizers of the state injection sites say more than two dozen studies show its benefits. One study cites a 45 percent reduction in public drug use in the area. Another found addicts who use Insight were 33 percent more likely to go to detox.
And Dr. Thomas Kerr conducts research at the facility and sees other benefits.
THOMAS KERR, DR., CTR. FOR EXCELLENCE IN HIV RESEARCH: In the absence of such a facility, they would not only be high out on the street, but they'd be leaving their syringes in schoolyards, in parks, and on city streets.
CARROLL: But critics say allowing addicts to take more drugs is just wrong.
COLIN MANGHAM, DRUG PREVENTION NETWORK: It's like building a levy to stop a flood with a chicken wire fence.
CARROLL: Colin Mangham has done research, too, pointing out 800 people have overdosed at the facility in its four years of operation.
Look, you still had, what, 800 overdoses in a period of how long?
KERR: Right, in the period of about three years -- four years. But let's not fool ourselves. The overdose problem is not something that's restricted to the supervised injection site.
CARROLL: Kerr also says there have been no deaths at Insight despite the overdoses. The research, so compelling, health officials in San Francisco held a symposium discussing the possibility of hoping the first facility in the United States.
MAYOR GAVIN NEWSOM, SAN FRANCISCO: You had a lot of health officials there that did participate in the pros and cons, but my Director of the Department of Public Health doesn't feel the city should move forward.
CARROLL: Federal health officials don't want the facility in the United States, saying ultimately, it hurts the addicted.
DAVID MURRAY, DR., OFFICE OF NAT'L DRUG CONTROL POLICY: I think that is a cruel illusion because they're still addicted, trapped, trying to get out and dying by virtue of the drug itself.
CARROLL: Lorraine Trepanier says she has no allusions about her condition.
Do you think you'll get to a point where you'll actually go to a drug treatment program that helps you get off the drug?
TREPANIER: That's going to be very soon, because I want to, because I don't want to be down here all my life.
CARROLL: For now, a quick fix will have to do. Jason Carroll, CNN, Vancouver.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Where the rubber meets the road or in this case, the side of a building built Ford tough? Lands in, you've got to be kidding.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: OK, here we go. Outfits only a school mascot would love, yet these claws and paws have nothing to do with any school. They are prowling a fur fetish convention. Oh, you've got to be kidding?
Furries, that's what they call themselves. This from their 11th annual convention in Memphis. But these meetings take place all over the country. One of the favorite past times? Fur piles, just envision, if you would, a big mountain of costume-clad, six-foot raccoons, badgers, and ewoks.
Oops! OK, who hasn't done this? Hit the gas pedal, a floor mat's under the brake, can't stop. The vehicle smashes through a brick wall at a parking garage and lands one full story below. A Cincinnati man holds that claim to infamy tonight. He's fine. Actually joking about it. Says his truck lived up to the slogan, built Ford tough.
Chocolate bunnies and ducks supposedly laced with hallucinogenic mushrooms and LSD. Sheriffs deputies in Rockdale County, Georgia say the drug bust went down in this parking lot. Police credit 20-year old Matthew Jackson as being the master Willie Wonka here. They say he even wrapped the chocolate in silver and gold foil.
John Mellencamp admires John Edwards so much, he brought him on stage. So what did the crowd think? OK, two guys named John share an Iowa spotlight and the audience offers a reaction worthy of dog bone politics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(WEATHER REPORT)
HARRIS: And time now to chew on a little "dog bone politics" presidential style. We start with Republican John Mccain. He's known for straight talk. And he apparently gets it from his 95-year old mom. She voiced her opinion about Mitt Romney the other night and forced her son to a damage control.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTA MCCAIN, JOHN MCCAIN'S MOTHER: As far as this Salt Lake City thing, he's a Mormon. And the Mormons in Salt Lake City had caused that scandal. And to clean that up -- it's not even, again, it's not a subject.
JOHN MCCAIN: The views of my mother are not necessarily the views of mine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: OK. Democrat John Edwards likes to talk about his small town upbringing. He has even been known to play the John Mellencamp song about small towns at his campaign rallies. So what can be better than having Edwards making a cameo with Mellencamp Friday night in Iowa? Let's be generous and say Edwards got a mixed reception.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN EDWARDS: I've been all over your state in small towns. And you didn't come to listen to me. So I'm not saying thank you for being here. Have a wonderful night. Thank you all very much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Oh, look, you buy your tickets, you get to have your say.
This Veterans Day, we thought we'd bring you a bit of a twist on the day. He's an officer, a gentleman, and a comedian. Rob Riggle recently visited Iraq for Comedy Central's Daily Show. You will hear our talk a bit later tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROB RIGGLE: I'm inside a bunker.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON STEWART: The president's trip was six hours long. Is that any kind of time to get an understanding of such a complicated situation?
RIGGLE: Plenty, plenty, more than enough. Heck, I was just in Iraq. And I had the place figured out in 45 minutes. And that included 15 minutes just to get the hang of the subway system.
STEWART: There's no subway system.
RIGGLE: Well, that could have saved me 15 minutes right there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: OK, that's Rob Riggle, a correspondent on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart". The comedian spent five days in Iraq recently, performing for the troops and taping skits. But what's so unusual about Rob is he is also a major in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve with a tremendous sense of patriotism. In our Sunday spotlight, I asked him what it was like to bring comedy to a war zone. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROB RIGGLE, "THE DAILY SHOW": The people I met, their motivation and their morale was up. And I was glad to see that.
HARRIS: Are they open to comedy? I mean, look... RIGGLE: Oh.
HARRIS: You're funny as can be. Are they open to it?
RIGGLE: Absolutely. I had more than -- I can't even count how many soldiers and airmen came up to me and talked to me about quoting lines from the show.
HARRIS: Yes.
RIGGLE: And things that I had done in the past, little appearances in movies here and there. They're big fans of comedy over there. And what I found was, you know, they were open to anything. If we wanted to do a little bit, or we had an idea for something, and we said would you mind doing this, they were -- we couldn't beat them off with a stick.
HARRIS: So you were able to actually incorporate them into some of them into some of the bits you were working on?
RIGGLE: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. We did a mail call bit, where I came over and I had a bag full of mail. And I - you know, hey, mail call. And it was all value packs and Publishers Clearinghouse type stuff. And we told them, you know, now when I come around, I was obviously going to be oblivious to what's going on here. And I'll be throwing out mail. Just give us your, you know, give us the stone face.
HARRIS: Yes, yes, yes.
RIGGLE: And they all played along beautifully.
HARRIS: Well, I want to show everyone a clip of your work in Iraq and what you brought back to "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." This is you talking about the differences, a little comparison and contrast, boot camp, and waterboarding.
JON STEWART: Is boot camp comparable in any way to the mental and physical distress of something like waterboarding?
RIGGLE: Well, it's definitely tough. Yes, don't get me wrong. They had this tire course. I don't know if you've every tried to run through tires, but it's like toe stub city. And then there's this guy who's always in your face. He's all "maggot" and this - and reach around that. And you know, but did any of it give me a sensation comparable to water flooding my breathing passages and a feeling of imminent death? No, not really.
HARRIS: Ha, ha. You have a great time on that show, don't you? RIGGLE: We do. We have a blast. It's -- we're very lucky to have the people over there that we do, because everybody over there is outstanding.
HARRIS: It's all not fun and games. And I'm sure you had moments where you actually talked to some of the soldiers about real concerns, real issues. What is it that maybe we don't have a full appreciation of in terms of their real sacrifice, what it is they're going through as they battle this war?
RIGGLE: I think a lot of it is the unseen stuff. We get our news in clips. And we get our images in clips. And you don't realize that it's 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, these men and women are serving overseas. Sometimes in harm's way, sometimes not.
And it's not just them. It's their families. Their families are sacrificing every day, worrying about them -- are they going to come home safe, are they going to come home the same, are they going to come home whole? You know, and they have to live with that on a day- to-day basis. So those things are tough. And they wear on you. And they -- it's an undercurrent of stress that it might not be gun battles every day, but it's something that wears you down.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Comedy Central's Rob Riggle.
You know her as an award winning actress who often plays complicated characters in real life. Julianne Moore is pretty thoughtful herself. She fights to help cure some of today's most pervasive diseases. In CNN Heroes, sharing the spotlight, Julianne Moore introduces us to her heroes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JULIANNE MOORE: I think people hear about these diseases and they think, oh, you know, forget it, it's incurable. Well, I don't think so . I really don't. My name is Julianne Moore. And my heroes, Tom and Peg Lindsey, who are working very, very hard to bring awareness and find a cure for tuberous sclerosis.
Tuberous Sclerosis causes benign tumors to grow in major organs.
PEGGY LINDSEY: Tommy was born on June 27th, 1999. At about five weeks, I started to see his shoulder twitch a little bit. They gave him Cat scans. And you know, it was terrible.
TOMMY LINDSEY: Finally after an MRI, they realized that they were looking at tuberous in Tommy's brain.
PEGGY LINDSEY: First the neurologist came in. And he said your son has Tuberous Sclerosis. He'll never walk. He'll never talk. You should consider an institution. But in talking to other people, life wasn't that bad. It's not a death sentence. He does have a chance.
TOMMY LINDSEY: We made a pact that we weren't going to allow this to happen to anyone else if there was anything we can do about it. We decided we wanted to make Tuberous Sclerosis a household name.
It's just as common as Cystic Fibrosis, yet no one in the medical community is very familiar with it.
We were sending out all of these letters and trying to get some kind of recognition without an answer back from anyone until the day that I ran into Julianne Moore.
MOORE: I'm walking around the street. And I hear, "Julianne Moore." Hi, my name is Tommy. And this is my son, Tommy. He has a disease called Tuberous Sclerosis. And we just had brain surgery.
TOMMY LINDSEY: I tried to get the last three and a half years of his life out in 20 seconds. Said, you know, I'm just one father. My wife is one mother. We need somebody to help us out.
MOORE: So since then, I've kind of been involved as their spokesperson.
TOMMY LINDSEY: She went and testified before Congress with me. She comes to every fundraiser. Remarkable woman. Remarkable, remarkable woman.
It seems to me now that my life was almost mapped out. It was supposed to happen. Tommy was given to me for a reason. We were supposed to find a cure.
PEGGY LINDSEY: I feel like we might not be helping Tommy, but we're helping the next kid.
MOORE: When you deal with something this extraordinary, you're saying, "I'm going to educate other people in the world about this. I'm going to make this part of the kind of fabric of our lives," and that's what they've done.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: We have some other news to tell you about this evening. The San Francisco Bay's worst oil spill in almost 20 years now a major criminal probe.
Just in to CNN, the entire crew of a cargo ship has been detained as part of the investigation. Their ship hit part of the Bay Bridge last week, you may recall, spilling 58,000 gallons of oil.
And then this, $100 for a barrel of oil? We're almost there. And guess what? We will all pay dearly not only for gas and heating.
A special, "The Trouble With Oil, just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS: You heard all week how the price of oil is pushing $100 a barrel. Maybe that doesn't mean anything to you, but for the next half-hour, we are going to show you how it will impact almost every facet of your life and how we're all going to end up paying a price. How much? Here. Take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS (voice-over): At the pump, in the air, throughout your home to almost everything you buy. America is dependent on oil.
Tuesday prices hit a record high, $97 a barrel, and reluctantly backed off. Then, an international agency that's usually pretty conservative changed its tone saying the demand will get worse, especially in the years ahead.
WILLIAM C. RAMSAY, INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY: Well, our estimate is that energy demand worldwide would increase by some 50 percent, 55 percent by now -- by 2030.
HARRIS: According to AAA, the average price for a gallon of gas is now over $3. However, in some areas of California, drivers are paying more than $4.
Last week, American Airlines, the nation's biggest passenger carrier, raised the price of domestic round trip fares by $20. Other major airlines followed suit.
But worst of all, higher prices are going to hit home, especially for those in the Northeast. The Energy Information Administration predicts home heating bills in that region will increase at least 22 percent over last year. And that is assuming that oil prices stay where they are, which is anything but guaranteed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Yeah, it's more expensive, but more expensive for a reason that doesn't have anything to do with the actual price of oil. What? How can that be?
I had a conversation this week with CNN's Ali Velshi, and I started it by asking that very question.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Cut through it all for us at home and for me here trying to figure it out. Why is the price for a barrel of oil so high right now?
ALI VELSHI, CNN SENIOR BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, and this is very tough for folks to understand because it doesn't make sense. There's...
HARRIS: Right.
VELSHI: It's a supply and demand thing, and you'd think that, you know, the more people who have -- who want it and the less there is of it, that's where the price goes up. But that sort of stopped at about $60 a barrel. This has become much more about trading and speculation.
HARRIS: Ali, that is crazy! So you're telling me that somewhere around $60 is the true price for a barrel of this light sweet crude that we're talking about.
VELSHI: Insomuch as there's a true price, right, because if you want to buy one, you're going to have to pay what those traders want you to pay.
But the bottom line is from the point of view of what it should be based on economics and supply and demand, it should not be anywhere near these levels, and most economists and experts say for the long term, we should be seeing oil prices coming down. But the short term is where we live.
HARRIS: What does all this mean for consumers now?
VELSHI: Well, you've seen the price come up. For a little while, it took -- it was a very surprising delay in how this oil price managed...
HARRIS: Absolutely. I couldn't understand that.
VELSHI: -- but, you know, forget it. The delay is over. It's moving up. You're going to see gas prices --now they're above $3 a gallon.
HARRIS: But just in time for the holiday driving season.
VELSHI: Yeah, exactly. That's going to -- that's taking money out that you otherwise might have been spending. Your higher interest payments are taking money out. Your lower dollar means -- pick up anything that you work with and turn it around. It's going to say, "Made in China." We import everything. Our dollar going down makes that more expensive.
You put all that together. You know, that is going to take money out of your pocket. Not just gasoline, heating oil, if you live in the Northeast. Anything you buy from a store that's got plastic on it, anything that's delivered by a truck, anything that's made in a factory that needs oil. There's no way you can avoid the increase in the price of oil. This affects everybody.
HARRIS: But didn't we talk a couple of days ago about the supplies not being drawn down as far as some had predicted and that was good news?
VELSHI: Right, but only $60 of this price is really about supply and demand.
HARRIS: Yeah, yeah.
VELSHI: The rest of it's all speculative anyway. So let's say we found out we had a million extra barrels of oil in the United States. Guess what? The price will go down a couple of bucks.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Guess what? Energy traders are literally gambling with your gas money.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Andrew Lebow has been an energy trader for nearly three decades. Never, he says, have there been so many investors bidding up oil.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: How is that possible? Our senior correspondent Allan Chernoff's report coming up in 60 seconds. It's "The Trouble With Oil."
You're in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: You know, the cost of filling up your car has been rising steadily for the past two weeks. The average national price for a gallon of gas is now hovering near $3.10 a gallon. That is the highest point since the summer driving season, which is usually the peak for gas prices.
CNN's Allan Chernoff investigates.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
CHERNOFF (voice-over): Prices at the pump are soaring yet again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is getting outrageous.
CHERNOFF: Is there a shortage of gas? Not at all. It's crude oil's rapid climb to nearly $100 a barrel, say energy experts, that's driving the price of gasoline as well as home heating oil. Yet there's no shortage of crude oil either, say fuel distributors like David. Schildwacker (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have more than enough oil.
CHERNOFF: In fact, the Department of Energy reports oil supplies are above average for this time of year. And demand? It's actually declined in the past couple of weeks.
(on camera) Energy analysts say crude is rising because of fear there might be a disruption in the flow of imported oil. The last time there was a significant cut in foreign supply was when the U.S. invaded Iraq. Back then, the price of oil hit $35 a barrel, a fraction of today's price.
(voice-over) Andrew Lebow has been an energy trader for nearly three decades. Never, he says, have there been so many investors bidding up oil.
(on camera) Is there any way that the supply-demand situation justifies oil at this level?
ANDREW LEBOW, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, MF GLOBAL: No, I don't think so, and I think we've seen a tremendous inflow of speculative money coming in to not only the oil markets, but commodities in general.
CHERNOFF (voice-over) Investors are putting hundreds of millions of dollars into the energy markets.
SAM GREER, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, MERCANTILE EXCHANGE: Now it's as acceptable to invest in, let's say, crude oil or gasoline as it is to invest in IBM.
CHERNOFF: And many traders are embracing the old Wall Street rule, the trend is your friend. The trend for oil has been up, and it's been paying handsome dividends.
FADEL GHEIT, ENERGY ANALYST: The largest financial institutions control oil price or dictate the direction of oil price much more than any oil company.
CHERNOFF: Of course, the trend could quickly change, leading traders to bail out of oil. But for now, a major reason we're paying more at the pump is that big investors have been striking black gold in the oil trade.
Allan Chernoff, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: And the price of oil is within striking distance of $100 a barrel. And guess what? There's no help from Washington in sight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRANK SESNO, CNN SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR: They are not going to affect the price at your pump. Not going to happen. And it may be a good thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: A good thing? I'll let him tell it. My conversation with CNN Special Contributor Frank Sesno.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't afford the gas for my luxury limousine.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS: $3, $4, $5 a gallon for gas? Is that where we're headed? I spoke with CNN Special Contributor Frank Sesno about what, if anything, Washington can do to help make sure this doesn't happen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: We count on Washington, D.C., to be our eyes and ears in matters like this. We don't want to spend $4, $5, $6 for a gallon of gasoline, but it looks like we're headed that way. What role can Washington play in helping us getting the oil companies to getting the oil suppliers off our backs right now?
SESNO: Oh, they're not going to do that. They're not going to...
HARRIS: What do you mean they're not going to do that?
SESNO: Because the price of gasoline and the price of oil is not set in Washington. They may set the taxes. They may, "Well, let it go higher." They may tax the oil companies, which is what the Democrats want to do. They are not going to affect the price at your pump. Not going to happen. And it may be a good thing. I think it is a good thing that they don't do that because, at some level, let the prices go up.
HARRIS: Oh, no, no, no, no. What? Let the prices go up?
SESNO: Do you want to conserve? Do you want to use less?
HARRIS: I want to be able to get there.
SESNO: Do you want to buy your third Hummer, Tony? Is that what you're...
HARRIS: No, no, no, no. Absolutely not. But you're saying that one way to discourage that kind of consumption is to apply a tax to make gas more expensive?
SESNO: I'm not -- no, I'm not calling for a tax. Don't get me there! Not at all. I want to keep the prices low, too. But the marketplace does work, and one of the reasons we drive the way we do is because we have been raised on cheap gas.
Here's the bottom line. The era of cheap gas is over. Full stop. There's too much competition in the world. There's not enough supply in the world. We're importing 60 percent of what we use now. We used to, you know, take care of ourselves, not anymore.
HARRIS: We don't want expensive gas. We like cheap gas. We -- why not the oil companies? Why can't they help us? Look, we see these quarterly profit reports. They're making unbelievable profits at these points when the price of a barrel of oil spikes. So why can't they give us something back other than higher pump prices?
SESNO: You asked me a moment ago about what can Washington do? OK. The... HARRIS: What can Washington do?
SESNO: The divide falls right between the parties, OK. Because there are two real different takes on this. The Democrats say because of what you just said, these prices, "The oil companies are making gazillion dollars. Let's tax them. Tax them heavily. Put the money into alternatives and renewables."
HARRIS: Absolutely.
SESNO: The Republicans say, "Wait a minute, guys," and I'm oversimplifying here, but basically they say, "You're focusing on the wrong thing. We've got more oil and gas. It's in Alaska. It's in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. We need to be more aggressive in getting our own production going and better."
That's the debate right now. You know what I think? It should be both.
HARRIS: Well, we've got to do something here because this idea of being dependent on these other sources, these overseas sources for oil, I can't tell you how vulnerable that makes me feel.
SESNO: And it makes everybody feel vulnerable, and that's, I think, one of the bottom lines of what we're seeing happen now. What we're seeing happen is that people are waking up. They're reading about the price of oil that goes up and up and up. They're reading about the people who are pumping it -- Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Russia.
HARRIS: Yeah.
SESNO: These are not always, you know, enlightened...
HARRIS: Absolutely.
SESNO: ... and people feel that they're being held hostage to the marketplace and to producers who do not have the world's or certainly America's best interests in mind.
HARRIS: Short term. Long term. We see what's happening right now short term, but I have to read this to you. You know about this agency, the International Energy Agency. The head of that agency said this week, "We are headed toward really bad days" and that the global economy "faces a serious energy shortage in the near future."
Frank, what's going on here?
SESNO: China is using more. India is using more. Their economics are exploding, and they're exploding on an oil economy. The ability of the international producers to pump more, both to feed that and to feed rising demand in this country, Europe, and everywhere there's a growing economy, not there.
And in poor countries, poor countries that are not producing their oil, they still have to pay for this. They can barely pay for their civilizations for their societies for their people as it is, and now they've got to pay for $100-a-barrel oil. So what that warning is, is real. This could be a very, very difficult time unless these prices come down.
HARRIS: Frank, always great to see you. Thanks for your time.
SESNO: Good to see you, Tony.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: So we've heard what Washington can or can't do. But what can you do?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN PRATT, NEW YORK RESTAURANT OWNER: I was driving a lot, and I was driving a big comfy, very expensive pickup truck that got about eight to nine miles per gallon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... none around / Other sources of power must be found / There's only so much oil in the ground / Yes, there's only so much...
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HARRIS: We know it's frustrating to hear gas prices are only going to get higher. We know it's frustrating to hear we consume too much energy. But, right now, people are making changes to help their own budget and change the energy picture at the same time. Maybe we could all get inspired by them. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS (voice-over): You don't have to be a tie-dye-wearing hippie to help fight the energy shortage. From L.A. to Atlanta to New York City, folks are finding ways to save money and save energy. Jonathan Pratt is one of thousands of Americans running their cars on bio fuel.
PRATT: I was driving a lot, and I was driving a big, comfy, very expensive pickup truck that got about eight to nine miles per gallon. My wife noticed that I was spending about $800 a month on fuel.
HARRIS: Pratt owns three restaurants in upstate New York, so he decided to take the excess grease from his kitchens and fuel his truck. He got his mechanic to install a conversion kit for about $1,800. It's big money, but he says he is saving much more.
PRATT: The first year, we saved about -- close to $6,000, and it's been that way since, about two years now. HARRIS: The National Bio Diesel Board says sales of fuel from vegetable and other natural oils went from two million gallons in 2000 to 250 million gallons last year.
Then there's solar power. Domemic Bucci, a retired engineer living in Rhode Island, can't get enough of it.
DOMENIC BUCCI, R.I. SOLAR ENERGY ASSOCIATION: People aren't realizing that they've got to do something about energy, the price of gas. They have to think about these things.
HARRIS: Listen to this. He's got a solar water heater.
BUCCI: That is steaming.
HARRIS: A solar cooker.
BUCCI: This is my pride and joy.
HARRIS: Plus, he's even attached a solar panel to his roof to harness even more energy.
While solar and wind power provide less than 1 percent of the electricity in the United States now, in a recent pole, solar power won out as the energy source Americans believe will be used most in 15 years.
But the energy-saving trend that's really catching on in America? Building green homes. You see them going up every day. The National Association of Home Builders found 90 percent of home builders are interested in a voluntary program that would certify green buildings. Homes with better insulation, well-sealed windows, and doors that don't leak precious A/C or heat.
And people with existing homes are also getting green upgrades.
BRENDA GALLAGHER, ATLANTA HOMEOWNER: This room was freezing cold, and once the insulation went up, it was amazing how the air balanced out in the house.
HARRIS: A part of creating green homes? Devices that control the flow of water and more energy efficient boilers, all helping conserve energy, so we buy less heating oil, burn less coal, while lowering our annual utility bills by thousands of dollars a year.
DAVID ELLIS, GREATER ATLANTA HOMEBUILDERS ASSOCIATION: I believe in the next five to 10 are just going to be how we do it because people are going to want that and they're going to need that to make their home an energy efficient and also very special place to live.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: And there you go. Jason Pelletier founded the group lowimpactliving.com with his wife last year. His Web site helps people figure out how to make your homes more environmentally friendly. Jason, good to see you. Thanks for your time.
JASON PELLETIER, LOWIMPACTLIVING.COM: Tony, it's great to be on your program.
HARRIS: Well, I have to ask you. There you have a piece all about the things that people can do to make their homes, their lives more environmentally conscious. So why aren't more of us doing more of those things? Have you figured it out, Jason?
PELLETIER: Well, I haven't figured it out completely, but there are a couple of reasons. I mean, one thing is that the things we're struggling against like global warming are such huge issues that people naturally ask, "What can I do about these things as an individual about these things?" The second is that there's so much technology, so many new products coming into the market right now that there's definitely a bit of confusion on the part of consumers about where to start and what to do.
HARRIS: Jason, weren't you having some problems in your own life and your own home trying to make your home more environmentally friendly? Is that -- isn't that the reason that you started the company in the first place?
PELLETIER: Yeah, that's a big part of it. I've been working in the environmental industry for about 15 years and, a few years ago, bought a house in Los Angeles and started to try to make it green. And after a couple of projects that took me 20 to 30 hours apiece, I was literally ready to give up, and I said, if this is difficult for me, it must be so much more difficult for others out there, and that's the part of Low Impact Living.
HARRIS: Beautiful.
So, Jason, what are some tips? Help us out here. Break the inertia for us. What are some practical things we can do now to make some real impact, a real difference in our life?
PELLETIER: Sure. Well, the first place I'd start is to say that this really isn't just about protecting the environment or reducing global warming. Most of these tips will not only save you money, but they'll also make your home a more comfortable and healthier place to live.
HARRIS: OK, OK.
PELLETIER: So we're start -- we spent a lot of time helping people in their homes make these changes, and what we find is that in any home, the first 20 percent or so of savings come out of what I call behavioral things.
And, you know, a couple of examples of that are setting your thermostat a bit lower when you leave the house. When you go to sleep at night, you turn off your lights. So why not do the same with your thermostat? And the other one would be your hot water heater. There are more ways to make that more efficient, but the easiest way is to reduce the temperature from 160 or 140 degrees down to 120, plenty hot enough to give you a hot shower, but very energy efficient.
HARRIS: Ultimately, what does the price for a barrel of oil have to get to, what does the price for a gallon of gas have to get to, before we all start to get serious about bio fuels and maybe some of the hybrid alternatives before we get serious about real change in our automotive practices?
PELLETIER: Well, I think we're already starting to see that. I mean, if you look at $3 a gallon for gasoline and higher and nearing $100 a barrel for oil, people really are starting to buy hybrids at higher rates, ethanol-powered cars, biodiesel-powered cars, all of that, but the other part of this is that, you know, we're seeing similar rises in price in natural gas and electricity and other things...
HARRIS: Yes.
PELLETIER: ... and I think we're still not quite to the point where that's really going to hit people hard enough in the pocketbook that they'll start to make changes in their home, but we're getting pretty close.
HARRIS: Are you optimistic about the future and folks making these changes?
PELLETIER: You know, I really am because the changes that we're seeing, the new products that are coming out, the new services from the largest companies in the world to some of the very smallest, it's just an explosion of innovation right now, and there seems to be a lot of -- everywhere we go, we talk to people about that are excited to do these things, just looking for a way how. So I am optimistic.
HARRIS: Jason Pelletier, thanks for your time. Appreciate it.
PELLETIER: Thank you very much. It was great to talk to you.
HARRIS: Alternative energy is the future, but oil is the present, and with the price sitting at over $96 a barrel and gas costing you more than $3 a gallon, you will have a lot to think about on your morning commute come Monday.
I'm Tony Harris from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta. Stay with CNN.
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