[frizzfreeling]

You seem to be assuming that unless nanny government steps in, people will just blindly keep using oil and never look at anything else until the last drop is extracted from the ground

Well, not to the last drop, but yes thats about right. People tend to do a lot "blindly" until reality smacks them in the face. Just look how many bankruptcies there are each year! Common sense will keep just about anybody from getting so far into debt that they have to claim bankruptcy, but yet millions do.