It’s time to discuss what we’re going to do about our depleting supply of oil. 

Here in the U.S., we’re doing nothing, though we call this technique “letting the free market solve the problem.”  The are many good reasons to question the “wisdom” of the free market in this context.  The consequences of doing nothing will be horrifying, however.  The first step to doing something will be to convince economists to wake up from their dangerous fantasies. 

This letter by Michael Lardelli, published by Energy Bulletin points out that those who are sounding the alarm about peak oil are primarily scientists — whereas the opposition consists largely of economists.  The scientists aren’t seeing eye-to-eye with the economists [Note:  Lardelli is a professor with the School of Molecular and Biomedical Science  at The University of Adelaide, in AUSTRALIA].

[The economists] seem to believe that the geological reality of finite conventional oil resources and the thermodynamic constraints on energy production from alternative hydrocarbon sources can be overcome by a sufficiently high price signal.

[However], there are many statistical and energy-production data supporting predictions of imminent energy decline. For example, a chart of annual discoveries of oil during the twentieth century shows that, despite tremendous advancement in discovery and extraction technology during this period, oil discoveries have been on a downwards trend for nearly 50 years (see ASPO Newsletter 73; January 2007).

Although huge, non-conventional oil resources exist — for example: tar sands, shale oil and even biofuels — harvesting these resources is