How to trade hot commodities?

Soaring commodity prices are driving the cost of food, gasoline, airplane tickets and just about everything else we want to buy to new heights.

As consumers, besides for cutting back on purchases, there's little we can do about this state of affairs. But for investors, rising commodity prices offer an opportunity to make some money. I'll get into specifics in a minute, but first some background.
Demand or speculation?
Commodities include corn, coffee, wheat, soybeans and almost all other agricultural products; crude oil, natural gas and heating oil; copper, lead and other industrial metals; gold and silver; and livestock.

Many commodities are trading near record prices. Why? Some blame growing demand from emerging markets. Others blame speculators. Still others blame the diversion of corn crops to ethanol production.

This question isn't merely academic. If speculators are the driving force, commodity prices are in bubble space and sooner or later will come crashing back to earth. However, if the reasons are more fundamental, prices are probably headed higher.
Try your hand via ETFs
If you buy the fundamental argument, you can use exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, to profit from rising commodity prices.

This is a relatively new opportunity. Most commodity ETFs have been available for less than two years. Before that, futures contracts were the only way to invest directly in commodities. But futures are short-term bets and too risky for most individual investors.

Another alternative is to buy shares of companies involved in the corresponding industry. For instance, you could buy an oil driller to gain from rising energy prices. But that doesn't always work. Often, related industry stocks don't follow commodity prices.