Every now and then, in reading about global warming and other environmental issues, I come across a reference to ‘peak oil’, usually as yet another example of how humans blindly pursue their own short-term interests, scarcely heeding the crisis that is waiting for them ahead. And of course we humans do have a tendency to do just that, some of the time, at least. Anyway, I marked down ‘peak oil’ as a subject to read about, and after some time at the computer, protected by air-conditioning that is doubtless increasing the heat outside, offer you the results of my reading. First, ‘peak oil’ is as contentious as AGW itself. The phrase itself prompts 55,600,000 hits on Google, and there are a dozen or so variants of the phrase as well. You may not be surprised to learn that there are ‘peak oil deniers’ […]