Price Hikes

Aside from being financially painful, seeing these prices makes me wonder a few things:

1. What has happened over the past several weeks to cause this drastic jump in consumer cost?
2. Why doesn't this inspire more people to think we should be looking for alternatives?

I know this isn't the first time we've seen unreasonable price hikes, but it seems that the rhetoric in the country is disproportionately averse to "green" energy of late.