Peak Oil

I've spent some time reading a blog called Peak Oil Debunked which talks about pretty much what you'd expect. Here's a representative snippet:

So here's a conservation tip for people out in the exurbs: sleep at your office or workplace during the week, and commute on the weekends. That will reduce your commuting fuel usage by 80%, even with single person commuting.

Of course the pessimists will moan and howl over this one. It pisses them off that I am unmasking the "peak oil problem" for what it really is: a trivial lifestyle issue. Sleeping at the office just isn't "realistic". It's more realistic to think that the overweight American populace will wage bloody riots in the street -- because sleeping at the office a few nights a week is so ridiculously unthinkable. The American way of life is not negotiable, doncha know.

In any case, it's an interesting counterpoint to the doom and gloom peak oil sites out there. Despite my relatively liberal and conservation-oriented views in this area, I think I'm a bit more on the Marshall Brain/Cecil Adams school on the whole peak oil thing than I am in the doomsayers' camp.

Things will definitely change once refined petroleum stops being cheaper than bottled water, but I just don't buy the idea that it's going to be an unmitigated disaster. I think it's going to be a well-mitigated potential disaster, not unlike Y2K.