Well, for starters, try going
here.
We are at the inflection point where world oil reserves begin to diminish, at a time when demand is rapidly escalating. As a species and a global civilization, we are apparently growing oursleves to death.
I picked up a pithy, frightening book at Barnes and Noble yesterday called, "A Short History of Progress" by Ronald Wright. He argues that civilizations fall as a matter of course, that we have blinders on and that we are doomed by our congenital hopefulness (read: denial). If this stuff is true, it's bigger than Iraq.
So, can anyone here who knows more about this stuff educate me more. . . or talk me off the ledge?