I have refrained from addressing the debate on Peak Oil, primarily because the idea is self evident. Oil and gas are finite resources. Their production will peak and decline. The question of when that will occur, or did occur, is still contentious, as are the consequences, including possibly staggering energy prices. Stances range from completely reasonable to patently absurd. There has been no reason that I could find to wade in with another opinion on the subject - until I heard a speech from a noted industry spokesman, that is. While the subject of Peak Oil was handled well enough, if a bit glibly, the speaker's position on its impact and the appropriate response to that impact left me feeling like I had had a visit with Thomas Malthus. Since Malthus died in 1834, that was an uneasy feeling.
In two editions of "Essay on Population" (1798 and 1804), Malthus argued that an unmanaged population would always outstrip the food supply available to sustain it. In that case, nature would prevail and, through famine, disease, war and natural disasters, align the population with the food supply. His proposed cure was a program of social and moral management that held the middle and lower (especially lower) classes in check and prevented excess population growth. If you are guessing that it didn't work, you are right, although some of Malthus' ideas formed the basis of modern welfare systems.
What Malthus did not take into account was the progress of technology in food production which has, fairly consistently, aligned the food supply with exploding populations, and then some.
The world has consumed approximately 1 trillion bbl of oil to date, and an unknown quantity of gas. By most estimates, there are 3 trillion bbl left that we know of and enough natural gas for hundreds of years. At least a trillion of those barrels are bypassed oil and most of the balance is unconventional. They will be expensive but recoverable. And, there are two apparently viable alternative energy sources, photovoltaic and dry geothermal.
That makes it hard to understand the speaker's scenario to deal with the implications of Peak Oil. And that is to consume locally grown food and make products locally. It's an argument that has gained some popularity in certain areas. The argument is based on the high costs to transport material across continents and globally. We obviously could gain some ground by maximizing transportation efficiency but I see no way to disestablish the global economy and replace it with regional and local economies. While no one would argue that it is not a divine right to eat tropical fruit in the north in February, it is also not easy to ponder localized auto production, pharmaceutical production, electronics production or any of the other major consumer and business products that account for the bulk of transportation expense. It is also hard to envisage the harm done to many, or most, local economies when income from exportable goods and food stuffs is removed. Maybe I missed something but, in all, I can't see this as a reasonable solution to a yet-to-be fully quantified problem, especially in light of developing technology. With all due respect to Thomas Malthus, the speaker and like-minded folks out there, I will remain a skeptic.

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