After Oil Supplies Dry Up, What's Plan B?

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Excerpt:

At this point, you might be asking yourself: When oil becomes scarce, how will I get food? That's a very good question. Here are a few more: Will my garbage get picked up? How will my water district purify and deliver water and treat sewage without petrochemicals? What if I need an ambulance? What if my home is one of the 7.7 million that rely on oil for heating? Which of my medications are made out of petrochemicals? How will I get to work? Will I even have a job anymore?

But don't just ask yourself. Ask your elected officials, your public utility district and your grocer. Ask the U.S. Postal Service, Federal Express and American Airlines. Ask GM. If you have one, ask your financial adviser or stockbroker which companies will still be in business after peak oil hits. Odds are, he or she will give you a blank stare.....

....But cities cannot solve the peak oil problem on their own. They don't have the revenue needed to build light-rail networks and wind farms or to store massive grain reserves. During a recession, they will be in no position to guarantee income supports for millions of laid-off workers. But the more they do now, while they still have a revenue stream, the better off their residents will be.

If the peak oil doomsday scenarios are to be averted, it will require coordinated action at every level of government, by every sector of the economy and by every community and citizen in the nation. We are heading into a political era in which the need to come together to invent and support life-sustaining social and economic systems will trump all else.

Some tout alternative energy technologies as the silver bullet that will save us from a peak oil crisis. But there is a broad consensus among energy analysts that it will be decades before such alternatives are available for wide-scale implementation. Moreover, some of the alternatives with the strongest political backing, including ethanol and liquefied coal, may cause even more severe global warming than petroleum has.

The United States needs to slam the brakes on fossil fuel consumption. As if arresting climate change weren't enough of a reason for immediate and strong conservation measures, the end of oil may just force upon Americans a reality we have ignored for far too long: We cannot go on like this, pedal to the metal, asleep at the wheel.