Winter, High Oil Costs Cause Global Chills

VIENNA, Austria – Long underwear in
South Korea, extra sweaters in U.S. classrooms, rising sales of wood-burning stoves in Denmark. Winter is here, and because of a spike in heating costs, people from Tokyo to Toledo are looking for alternatives to oil.

Heating oil and other energy prices are up to 40 percent higher than three years ago. That translates into bad news for Northern Hemisphere consumers whose budget is already stretched by a summer of high prices at the gasoline pumps
In South Korea, where a vigorous save-energy campaign is under way, the clothing industry expects a 10 percent rise in profits from sales of warm apparel. But not only manufacturers see an opportunity.

“We have seen a lot of thefts of heating oil … stolen from private properties and construction sites,” says Peter Josephsen, a police officer in Ringkoebing, 140 miles west of Copenhagen.

AP