Good point that the reaction to Peak Oil could be a frenzy of switching to coal and nuclear and further wars. This kind of response is especially tempting to those already in power: keep it big and top-down, everyone keep to their places in the heirarchy, Halliburton and Bechtel get to keep building things, authoritarian control increases (especially if, like you say, decisions are made in time of crisis.)

But so many progressive and humane responses are already being lived out day to day, I can't help but think that these ways (and new ones invented all the time) will be the obvious solutions to people who have come to understand that a local, community minded and self-entertaining life is the best of all worlds.

Dan,

I totally agree. The end of the age of oils is a huge opportunity to restore the biosphere and make human existence a much more fulfilling endeavor. My concern is that many people, including so-called progressives and environmentalists, are dissmisive about the possibility of Peak Oil and the associated opportunity. Man's reaction to Peak Oil is just as likely to be an acceleration of current trends (e.g., switch to coal, nuclear, oil wars) as it is to deceleration, and even more so if mainstream acknowledgement of Peak Oil and decision-making is initiated during a crisis.

We need to build awareness of Peak Oil and its repercussions now, and the usual suspects (progressives and environmentalists) are missing. As my colleague Julian puts it environmentalists and progressives "are willing to do anything as long as they do not have to change".

Here are a couple of sites of interest:

globalpublicmedia.com Watch energy investment banker Matt Simmons talk about the state of Saudi wells

copad.org Sign the declaration of Oil Peak and Decline