Originally posted by threadend
The worldwide economic impact caused by the loss of the excesses brought about by the automobile would be catastrophic.
A couple of points here. Firstly, there were economic losses in the post "horse and cart" era, too. The fact is, people move on. The fact of the matter is, there will eventually be a post-oil economy, and a transition to be made. This is an inevitable consequence of an economy based on a finite resource.
The way I see it, there are two alternatives here. Either fuel in its current form can be priced to reflect the finite resource that it really is (and that doesn't happen at the moment), facilitating a gradual transition and perhaps buying our species more time to come up with something better (something I'm not convinced our species has the intelligence to do, and hence the current situation).
The other alternative is to simply suck up to the current leaders of the oil industry, subsidise the crap out of it (which is what currently happens) until there is an oil shortage crisis, and then have a massive panic when the time comes. I know which option
I'd choose.