People do use their oil shares to buy houses, cars, planes and college educations. When crude oil prices hit $140 per barrel, pension funds and college endowments rejoiced. Our 2006 book, The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook was published just as conventional hydrocarbons struck their all-time global production top and began to decline (a picture that emerged only years later). The book challenged readers to consider how they might cope with $20 per gallon gasoline and the absence of public transit alternatives. It also described the undulating top we now see, where high price destroys demand, which crashes price, which boosts demand, which raises price, and so on. Think of this part as the whoop-de-doos after the roller coaster cranks its way to the top and lets gravity take over. Lately there have been a spate of articles in the financial press beating up on Peak Oil theorists for […]