Goodbye To All That Oil  

GNN reports that the peak oil meme is transforming into conventional wisdom.

Environmentalists may be tempted to anticipate an ever-worsening scarcity of oil as just the thing to shock America into conservation and serious development of alternative energy. But what if – and this is not hard at all to envision – the peak prompts a worldwide fossil-fuel rush instead?

Expensive, energy-inefficient and environmentally disastrous efforts to exploit oil and tar sands in Canada, Venezuela and elsewhere could be cranked up to full speed. The militarization of American society could become total, as the government’s chief mission becomes control of oil across the globe. (The number-one target, of course, would be the Persian Gulf, where resides 63 percent of the world’s remaining oil.) And we would likely exploit our large coal reserves in a big way, breaking new global-warming records as we go.

The best alternative to that nightmare is renewable energy. Geologist Walter Youngquist, author of the 1997 book, Geodestinies, has taken a hard-headed look at the inventory of alternatives to fossil fuels and concluded that to make them work, we’ll have to put an end to our profligate ways. He paints a picture of a frugal, restrained society very different from the one we’ve lived in on the upslope of the oil curve.

Yes, peak oil’s in the news, but it’s only beginning to seep into the national conciousness. Maybe we’ll know the idea is really catching on when Hollywood gets interested. But by the time The Day After the Peak hits your local cineplex, it might turn out to be a reality show.