Can can we avoid the coming economical crisis?

Question

Economies will collapse when fossil fuel dependent countries run out of energy.

Answer 1

Is that you, Jimmy Carter?

Didn't you say we'd run out of oil by 1987?

Answer 2

It's not at all a crisis. There are alternative forms of energy for every use of oil. We continue to use oil becuase it's the most productive approach at the moment. If and when oil truly starts to become in short supply, it's price will gradually increase -- this would be a decades-long trend, it would not happen overnight. So gradually alternatives will become more economical as their development matures and oil becomes more expensive by comparison.

The result is simply that we will gradually migrate to alternatives. Indeed we will never run out of oil because we'll have moved completely to alternatives when there is still oil in the ground (just as we never ran out of whale oil when we moved to kerosene).

Any doubts? This is in fact already happening, as 2006 was the first year ever that the use of oil DECLINED among the 30 member nations of the OECD -- and we've barely scratched the surface of emerging alternatives.

Answer 3

1.-I think we are already INTO an economic crisis [but don't recognize it yet]
2- It is unavoidable, it appears. [No one wants to be the first to be sacrificed, and it involves many aspects of our economy that have slowly evolved to create a 'perfect storm.']
3- It has nothing to do with the possible depletion fossil fuel. I think there are other, more urgent issues now.