The Times Discovers Peak Oil

I was pleased to see that Peak Oil is finally (perhaps even inexorably) making its way into the "mainstream media." The Seattle Times has an editorial by Kate Riley in today's paper about the coming changes to the oil economy. It's a pretty good read, on balance, with some nice suggestions for how to go about addressing the problem (in particular Congressman Inslee's New Apollo Project. Unfortunately I don't think she did an adequate job conveying the potential catastrophic effects of ignoring this problem, because I don't think most people will perceive the enormity of this issue until they're a bit freaked out. If you want to get freaked out right now, I would recommend James Howard Kunstler's book The Long Emergency or Kenneth Deffeyes book Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak. Both of these books do an excellent job explaining why it's going to be challenging to provide a smooth transition from petroleum to other sources of energy. Kunstler's book is focused more upon the socio-economic effects of our collective lack of preparedness, and Deffeyes explains why we are at the peak right now and why the viable alternatives will most likely take 10-15 years to bring on-line. Basically, we have a lot of work to do.