From Envirowiki

Peak oil is the point at which oil production reaches it's historical maximum. At this point, the amount a easily extractable oil starts to drop, so over all production begins to decline, causing prices to increase.

Geologist Marion King Hubbert first hypothesised the peak, both for US oil production, and for global oil production. US oil production peaked in the early 70s, very close to Hubbert's prediction. Predictions for the global oil peak range from about the mid 1990s, until around 2015. Exxon reckons that it won't be until 2030, but they've got a vested intretest in maintaining oil addiction. A new study from The Energy Watch Group (europe), argues that the peak happened in 2006^[1]

[edit] 1 Impacts

Peak oil basically means rising oil prices, through decreased supply. Oil prices affect everything in western society, from our ability to travel, to the price of food, and goods, and on the ability to produce plastics, and other related materials.

Peak oil is technically not as huge a problem as climate change, since it will only really impact on "civilised" humans - that is, it will not affect those pre-contact indigenous populations still in existance, or those have mostly retained their oil-free way of life, and it will also not affect the rest of the diversity of life, except by secondary means (for example, by increasing alternative fuels such as palm oil-derived biofuels. Nonetheless, it may result in wide-scale human famines, and wars, and disease, should populations with high densities not be able to maintain sanitation.

[edit] 2 Solutions

Most of the problems associated with peak oil are related to the steepness of the decline post-peak: the steeper the decline in production, the more difficult it will be to find alternative ways of living in time to avert catastrophe. The most basic way of addressing the catastrophe then is to minimise oil-dependancy in as many ways as possible (while making sure your alternatives are not causing other problems elsewhere.

One method is to localise food production. The best method for immediately reducing oil consumption is to stop buying crap. Permaculture allows us to grow food at similar densities to what we already do, while removing the need for oil and gas derived fertilisers and pesticides.

[edit] 3 References

1. ↑ The Energy Watch Group Weighs in on Peak Oil, Dan Sweeney, on JUICE: Alternate Fuels World. 2007-10-24 00:44. accessed 2007 11 09.