bluegargantua

Agreed, Sterling can be way too flip when he hasn't thought something through. But his point is still valid - worrying about peak oil is sort of pointless if you believe that climate change (caused mostly by burning all of that first half of the oil) is going to pose a much bigger threat much sooner. It's in the same class as worrying about nearby supernova or asteroid collision events. If we somehow survive to the point where climate change isn't a bigger threat to agriculture then we will have modified our agriculture system to the point where it's no longer such a petrochemical suck. Kunstler's point seems to be that we can't continue in our current course without hitting a collapse point; Sterling's point is the same except he sees the collapse happening much much sooner and for different reasons.