Ignoring inconvenient messages

I've probably spent too much time lately reading books with depressing titles like "Our Final Hour" by Martin Rees, "The End of Oil" by Paul Roberts or "The Long Emergency" by James Howard Kunstler. These are writers who aren't afraid to look unflinchingly at an event that most people are unwilling to contemplate, but which nearly everyone, at some level, must know is coming: the peak of worldwide hydrocarbon production, particularly oil and gas. There's disagreement about whether that peak is occurring right now or whether it will occur in 10, 20 or 30 years, but nearly everyone who thinks about things like this agrees that it will happen in the lifetimes of many people who are alive today.

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