Why is it that it's so often the same people who worry about 
destroying the planet by burning oil AND worry about running out? If 
both are true, shouldn't they celebrate the running out part, and not 
bother with environmental politics at all?  Doug has consistency in 
favour of his approach to this.

But all of the debate about climate change still hasn't produced a 
consensus.  Can't some of the petro-thusians take time out and 
tell us what the alternative is? If we are going to have to switch from 
fossil fuel reliance, how exactly will you manage the massive shift in 
living patterns, the enforced parochialism of a world without cars, 
how will you distribute the misery and impoverishment that it would 
cause?  Just saying that we MUST use less, that we MUST develop 
alternatives is not an answer to this.

I'd rather take my chances with climate change than surrender all that 
humanity has won from nature over the past few generations.  

--James