Arraya: Let me preface my comments by saying that I generally take a very jaundiced view of government or “official” sources, especially where power and money are concerned.

I also don’t disagree that we’re rapidly approaching (using existing modeling techniques that rely on existing technology for extraction) an inflection point.

However, and this is where you and I probably part company, I don’t see that there is going to be some major catastrophe befalling us that leads to a “Mad Max” kind of existence.

I’m going to hedge my bets a little, though, with my next thought. I think that China is the proverbial canary in the coal mine. Chinese officials themselves have said that if GDP doesn’t hit an annualized 8% growth rate, the country will be looking at severe social and economic “dislocation” (which I’m reading as unrest, dissension and a possible uprising). So, in some ways, China would provide a near term look at what might happen if some of the conditions predicated in a Peak Oil scenario were to come to pass. That, of course, is just my own read.