History gives us no compelling reason to believe that our American way of life will last forever. The progress of 'civilization' is a sine wave - empire to feudalism to enlightenment and back again. Did Hadrian ever look out over Rome and visualize Barbarians in the streets? Probably. And now here we are, fat and dumb but feeling a bit guilty, and so our thoughts turn once again to the prospect of The End.

The Oil Age is indeed ending, regardless of whether or not the oil itself disappears. The Peak Oilers have served their purpose; when CNN is airing specials like "We Were Warned" (a grim, 70s-style "what if?" speculation re: the end of oil), you know P.O. has bubbled up into the national zeitgeist. The market is shifting - Hummer and Escalade builder G.M. is on the rocks, sales of photovoltaic cells are skyrocketing, China's building meltdown-proof pebble bed reactors and my teenaged nephews smirk at 'old people' in their idiotic SUVs. Whatever their motives - and I agree with a previous poster that it could well be sublimated guilt, class resentment or Utopian back-to-the-land fantasy that motivates many Oil Jeremiahs - the Peak Oilers have sounded the alarm, and for that we should all be grateful. Backyard gardens and bicycles are wonderful things, and we could all benefit from localized economies.

In the end, Peak Oil is a pyschological rather than a material phenomena. Religious extremism, global warming and attendant natural disasters, avian flu and the nagging suspicion that our government's open-ended Iraq disaster and undisciplined spending have sent the American empire into terminal decline have kindled apocalyptic visions everywhere. These visions are our conscience telling us it's time to change our ways, but that doesn't mean they are correct.

As for The End: my money's on the microbe.

whay a bunch of cjicken littles. someone will figure out something. don't be so negative.

Dear Gratefule Live (sic),

I feel to see the link which you establish between profligacy and empires. It is interesting, however, that you seem to be assuming that the United States is currently an empire and is thereby entitled to overconsume as much as it likes. Basically: you would if you could, losers.

And regarding WWII: ever heard of the Russians? The Eastern Front? Stalingrad?

Would be as mad.

This is just more doomsaying, survivalist nonsense. Planting gardens indeed. Buying land in Montana, like that'll save anything. Buy a bombshelter... wait, that was the 50s. When situations are dire, technology ramps up quickly. People yelling "We're doomed, dooooooooomed" forget that Oil has been important for only around 100 years. The technology making oil as important as it is happened in far less than the 20 years that seems to be the big waiting period everyone points to for its replacement. New technology is often like that, for 30 or 40 years, people say "It'll take 20 years before it is viable" and then one day everyone is using it a few months ater the last time someone said "It'll take 20 years."

How do we get out of any coming crisis safely? Education, research and investment. Plant a garden, sure, but make it a Victory Garden, not a Garden of Doom.

Regardless of whether Peak Oil comes to pass, it is impossible to look at the individuals mentioned in the article without seeing strong parallels to any of the Millenialist, end of the world is nigh, movements that have taken place throughout human history. One wonders if needing to believe in impending macro disaster is something that is in our genes.

Perhaps it is a way to deal with the real uncertainties of life and our fragile mortalities--why worry small scale when you can worry about something really, REALLY big and imminent. I remember the consultant in the cube next to me doing exactly the same type things pre 2000 in preparation for the collapse of American society. I don't know what he did with his 6 months plus of hoarded gasoline (which doesn't keep indefinitely) once y2k went off without a hitch, but it was kind of embarrasing for him. Towards the end of 1999, he was even beginning to buy into natural disasters exacerbating/instead of technological doom. He kept saying "I hope you're right that things are ok," but it is hard to believe that when you've gone way out on a limb in your doomsaying.

So, to get to a point of some kind, these dates of imminent rapture, return of Jesus, population collapse, and what have you keep coming and going without the End coming. I'm sure it'll happen sometime, but Peak Oil isn't necessarily any more likely to be it than any of the myriad doomsdays that have come and gone.

Oil will run out, probably, but coal is still plentiful in the US, and can be converted to oil (expensively). Nuclear is out there, solar, wind, etc. I think the most likely outcome is not that we wake up and oil is gone, poof, but that supply constraints push up prices, making other alternatives and behavior changes more attractive.

Gas powered leaf blowers and lawn mowers.

That woul be "fail".

Do you really see Nicki Hilton riding a bicycle to her next soiree? Or The Donald sticking solar panels on his roof and turning down his heat?

You don't even know these human individuals except through the mass media, and yet you give yourself the right to insult them and project behaviors on them.

Isn't what you're doing a kind of rape? After all, I don't believe you got their consent to make these projections about their reactions to peak oil.

Where is there any human generosity on the left?

Class hatred makes the world really simple. You don't have be generous at all. Just use your handy formula for judging humanity and you'll automatically know without even thinking who to hate and who to merely look down on.