We should feel guilty about encouraging other countries to be energy hogs. We should feel guilty about using up all the world's petroleum supplies, estimated 20 to 30 years left, and not developing other ones. Energy companies around the world are hooked on oil and actively discourage alternatives by buying up patents on new technologies and burying them. Most of all, we should feel guilty about polluting the world. The American love affair with cars has brought our country to a crisis in air quality.
Fossil fuels are a finite resource.
True, there are other sources of energy such as nuclear, biomass, solar, thermal, hydro and wind. But these sources are inadequate to maintain the level of production and consumption we have reached. My bigger objection, though, is to the total paradigm of energy consumption being good for the world. Maybe it is good economically, though our track record on equitable distribution of wealth is dismal. Growth is undesirable ecologically, however.