So while reading the comments on one of the more creative online videos that talks about peak oil, I was struck by the preponderance of replies that seem to state absolutely magical beliefs in what science can do. Such as...

“There's enough oil under the north slope of alaska to supply the US for the next 200 years. Not only that, but old wells can be re-explored and often are found to have re-filled.” -deaglek

    Ok, so deaglek may not have even a simple grasp of mathematics but most people should be able to follow this simple number crunch. Here's the facts, the total proven crude oil reserves, in the ground, in the lower 48 states and Alaska are about 20 billion barrels of crude. The US consumes about 20 million barrels a day, multiply that by 365 days in a year, and you find that we consume about 7.3 billion barrels of crude a year. So, in less than 3 years we would consume all of the available oil in the US, that includes the Alaskan north slope.

    So not too long ago I made a commitment to do as much transportation as I possibly could by bicycle saving the cars only for when no other alternative would do. Today, all day, no other alternative would do. It's a little depressing and disheartening to burn through about 4 gallons of gas in one day after barely using the same amount of gas in the last two weeks. Sure, there was justification in the absolute need to get so much done today in so little time as to rule out the bicycle. And there is fact that I can't haul 3 other people around on my bike. But it's different now, last year I would have brushed off the inefficiency.

    But today, let me tell you, today as I drove my wife, daughter and cousin through the pouring rain I found my eyes riveted on the commuter bicyclists in the morning. I really wanted to be there in the pouring rain, like them, struggling successfully against the weather and the traffic. It was a deep and visceral need to be in that wet and hectic struggle. Something about me has embraced that challenge, and suddenly I think driving is something too coddled, too pampered, too convenient. While I've always thought driving was inefficient, and endorsing a strategically wrong national obsession, I never though of it as less human, but now I don't know.