In relation to peak oil, the availability of oil is not going to drop off a cliff over night. I personally believe that we've already reached the peaking of World oil supplies and are at present travelling along a plateau whereby crude oil is barely keeping up with demand.
Such things as a slow down in China and to a lesser degree, India may serve to tip the balance back a couple of years to supply keeping ahead of demand, but only marginally. A further surge in demand may see prices rise to $100 a barrel as buyers grapple for deminishing supplies. It will probably be this way for some years to come, but eventually, we'll reach the cliff and in hindsight, we'll wonder why we didn't see it coming.
However, the plateau is so thin, it only takes a minor hiccup in the supply chain to cause major ecconomic hardships. These hiccups could include a raid to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions, a blockade of oil tankers to the West, or an unforeseen weather event. The price of oil will then skyrocket while the ecconomy of developed nations plummet. Oil demand will settle allowing prices to cool and it will all start again, but each time the swings to and fro will become greater and greater. It will be a wild ride before the general population wakes up to the facts of peak oil and when they do, it will be too late.
I predict the writing will appear on the wall in or around the year 2018. Lets see how close I get?
Wildcat 2007.

Ludwig & others have bagged the pollies.
I know that Costello has read at least some of the submissions to the
senate committee.
He made comments about future oil supply.

Imagine what would happen if at the next electtion campaign he said that
he was planning zero or negative growth and horrors he was involved in
planning petrol rationing !
Imagine he was planning for 10, 15, 20 percent unemployment !
If you have read the Hirsch report then that is what responsible
pollies should be doing.

He would be lambasted from here to breakfast time.
Sure he would get the votes from the like of us as few as we are but
what would the rest of the population do ?
More to the point what would the labour party do ?
Join him in agreeing that such a program should be planned for ?

Not bl*o*y likely !

So ultimately the problem is us voters.

I wonder if Big Oil has sponsored the Geneticist to bash the people with Carbon Footprint rationale, so that eugenecists can have a feild day?

There's a number of interesting videos on YouTube that explain the relationship between money/debt and the economy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr7vG0pnZCc

-It seems that in our present system without ever increasing debt there is no economic growth.

My question would be as follows: When we 'cross the chasm' of believing in Peak Oil (as we appear to be doing with Global Warming), this may be such a shock to peoples confidence in the future that the whole basis of our current economy will be shaken to it's foundations.

If Economic growth is founded in ever increasing debt levels and debt is based on peoples belief that they will be more able to pay in future (they borrow from the future) and we take away their belief in a better future then I suspect the answer is an end to the economy as we know it...

Regards, Nick.

a remarkable thread- rational and appropriate discussion.

a factor which was not given much light is the political and social structure of the nation.. the science and materials are present for a rapid conversion to the low-energy society that seems to be coming upon us. but boards of directors tend to put profit ahead of public sacrifice, and are quickly replaced if they don't. politicians might like to lead the nation to a prosperous and sustainable future, but can't lead if not elected, and can't get elected if they tell coal and uranium mining companies they are obsolete. worst of all, the electorate has been raised to believe that the government is responsible for everything, since no power to direct society is in their own hands.

it may be that oz, and 'the west', are lumbered with a social structure which cannot respond effectively to the stresses of an overburdened (with people!) planet.

http://www.countercurrents.org/gl-patil220207.htm

Whither Globalisation?
By Bal Patil
22 February, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Abstract

The world today is embroiled in an economic turmoil caused by the globalisation process. It is a veritable confusion worse confounded by the North versus South polarities of trading policies, developmental disparities and stark reality of opulence contrasted with destitution. These are increasingly brought in close encounters of an unforeseen variety in an inter-connected global environment with unprecedented, unpredictable and unnatural fusion of economic systems mixed in a strange brew of socio-ethnic and cultural cross-currents buffetted hither and thither by perennial human greed. Nearly 2.2 billion people in more than 62 countries, one-third of the world's population, are starved for water. Global population has tripled in the past 70 years while water use has grown sixfold due to industrial development, widespread irrigation, and lack of conservation. It is feared scarcity of water may lead to third world war.1 To top it all there is a projected 3C jump in global temperature caused by global warming which in turn would include a loss of up to 400 million tonnes of cereal production and put between 1.2 billion and three billion people- half of the current world’s population- at risk of water shortage. It is a case of double jeopardy. This is a wake-up call for the developed industrial nations.
In “a terrible indictment of the world in 2007” the UN said 18,000 children die every day of hunger and malnutrition and 85 million go to bed every night with empty stomach, 100 mm. Indian kids are malnourished. The spectre of global warming is knocking at the door. With the US poised for a MAD nuclear adventure the mankind is in for a future shock as never before in human history. It is truly all this and hell too scenario.

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Bal Patil Asks, Whither Globalisation?
18,000 children die every day of hunger and malnutrition; 85 million go to bed hungry every night.
Date filed: 26-03-2007