Civilization as we know it will come to an end sometime in this century, when the fuel runs out.

—David Goodstein, Professor of Physics, Caltech

The peak-oil theory combines serious geology with pop economics to “envision a dying civilization, the landscape littered with rusting hulks of useless SUVs,” as Caltech professor David Goodstein describes it in his book Out of Gas. The most popular leaders of this movement also envision a massive “die-off” of the world’s population, along with the end of industrial civilization.

The theory is fairly simple. There is only so much oil worth pumping out of the ground, and once that is half gone, the rate of pumping will reach an all-time production peak and start to decline. The peak will herald the beginning of an “earth-shattering crisis,” as one author puts it. The world economy and, most likely, the world’s population will decline right in step with oil production. ...