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The problem with Peak oil is that we users of oil are in an incentive trap. An incentive trap occurs where the best interest of individuals are NOT the best interest of society as a whole AND the individuals in that Society.
The Classic example is the "Tragedy of the Commons" example first (to my memory) by Adam Smith. You have a common area, ten people, Each one of them have the right to put ten horses in that common area. The Common area can only sustain 50. Once the number of horses reaches 50, the horses overgraze the Commons and it is left with enough grass for only 20 horses. What does each person do? While they each continue to put their 10 horses into the common area. Some fodder is better than no fodder. If one of the ten takes ALL of his horses out, he still has to feed his horses, but the remaining 90 horses still are overgrazing the land, and the BENEFIT of his removal of his horses does NOT benefit him or his horses, but the horses of the other 9 people with the right to keep horses in the common area. Thus to minimize his loss the person who pulled out his ten horses, will have to put them back to get what fodder they can (and than supplement that Fodder like the other nine people with the right to keep their horse in the common area).
I hate to say this, as to oil we are in an incentive trap. People who sacrifice and conserve oil, just benefit those people who do not what to conserve. Think about it, You do not buy oil, so demand drops, your neighbor who thinks you are an idiot for riding your bike, for the price of gasoline is dropping for him (Do to you riding your bicycle).
Traditionally their have been two way to end incentive traps, Government Controls or Religious taboos (By Religion I mean strongly held beliefs that do NOT permit dissent, a belief in God is NOT important in this definition of "Religion"). Working together, Government and Religion are an effective combination to resolve Incentive traps. Government has the right to use force to end an incentive trap (For example restricting the number of horses in the commons to five instead of ten). This is how the Whitetail Deer population expanded since 1900, the Government put restrictions on how many deer people could take (Generally one) and the number of Deer expanded to the level it is today when many states are considering permitting people to take more than one deer per season.
Religious taboos also work, but only if universal, Religious tolerance can not be permitted, for the Dogma must be universal (and non-believers kicked out of the Society). There are many examples of religion being used to solve Incentive Traps. For example both the Jews and Moslem do NOT eat pork. Both started out as desert people and in deserts pigs use as much water as a human. Thus any desert group that bans pigs in favor of other animals (Sheep, Goats, cows and horses) have more water for their own people (Historians who have studied both groups tend to go with this explanation of the pork taboo than any other reason for the taboo). Note for the Taboo to be truly successful it must be universal, tolerance of dissent can not be permitted.
Another Example was the Medieval English Commons. When England was Catholic the Clergy appears to control the Commons so that it was NOT overgrazed. With the abolishment of Catholicism in England, the tradition of controlling overgrazing by the Clergy was replaced by enclosing the common areas and giving the Area to the local gentry. In effect replace religion as the mechanism to control the incentive trap by just abolishing the incentive trap (Of course NOT paying the poor anything for the lost of a right to graze in the commons).
Now I do NOT oppose Conservation, but I am telling people that unless you have a plan all your conservation will do is slow down other people from reducing their use of oil, by keeping the price low for a longer time period. Remember there are advantages in using a car, more time at home (Less time in Commuting), ability to stock up on food at a Supermarket, living in a lower cost home by being able to drive to work pass homes you can not afford etc. If you start your conservation TODAY, you will lose out of these advantages and your neighbors will retain these advantages and benefit from your conservation more than you will.
Thus what type of plan should one adopt? One that gives you as much of the advantages you can get from the oil economy while permitting you to swing to a post-oil economy with minimal changes. The Hybrid cars are an example of this. Hybrids can operate on today's roads (i.e. keep up with most traffic today) AND operate in a high oil price world of tomorrow where its main competitors will be low speed diesels with top speeds of 25mph (But 200+ miles to the gallon).
Another thing to do is to bike, but just to keep in the habit NOT to conserve. By Biking this way you can stay in shape so that when you HAVE to bike to work you can (Purchasing a Moped for short trips that one can not bike to is another suggestion, through this is more for a person who just can NOT bike today, but has to conserve fuel when Peaks Hit).
Another thing people can do is force Highway designers to design roads so that Bicycles can operate with cars in such a way that bicyclist think it is safe to operate their bikes. At present a lot of bicyclist just do not think it is safe to bike with traffic do to the design of the roads.
An alternative to this is to help push for bike-ways and make sure these are wide enough not only for people to ride single file but to pass slower traffic so that people can use them to commute in addition for recreation and exercise.
My point here is that Conservation by itself UNLESS IT IS IMPOSED BY THE GOVERNMENT AND OUR SOCIETY STARTS TO TREAT NON-CONSERVER'S LIKE THE CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS TREATED EACH OTHER IN THE 1600s, conservation will NOT do any good. In fact Conservation will help those people who just do NOT want to change and conserve. Now I do not see the Government ordering Conservation without a demand for Conservation from the people a a whole (i.e. a Demand to Conserve based on the "Religion" of Conservation). Historically religion has been used to change how the government did things. The Protestant Reformation in many ways was Society changing from the Society of the Early Middle Ages situation of Nobles and Peasants, to one where the Upper Middle Class dominated Society. The raise of Communism can be seen as a "Religious" movement of the Working Class (and Nazism and Fascism as "Religious" movements opposing Communism).
Now I have seen signs of this raising "Religious" movement regarding Peak Oil. You have radicals destroying SUVs biking to and from work etc. You have you dreamers, building bike-ways and bike paths. You have your early converts buying hybrids, but none of this will lead to a radical you way of thinking until Peak Oil hits and the majority of people has to adapt. Once "Freed" from their old belief system based on Cheap gasoline people will first look for "Witches" i.e. the evil oil companies. Some of these Witches will be truly evil, but most just unfortunate people who people blame for the problem (In many ways the Witch hunts of the 1660s reflected the changes in Society caused by the Raise of the Middle Class and the peasants had to look for someone to blame their problems on and Witches were traditional). Today the "Witches" will be the evil oil Companies. Now the Oil Companies are not angels but there are as much a victim of Peak oil as the people demanding their heads but that will be unimportant to the mob, someone must be to blame and that person or persons must be destroyed (Thus Witches were burned and Oil Companies will be attacked in the years right after Peak oil). Now once people accept Peak Oil such hysteria will die down (like the witch trials died down in the 1700s).
We have to prepare for this phase of Peak oil but being ready to tell people the sad truth, cheap oil is gone and at the same time try to use this movement to change the Government to one that will address Peak Oil. Once people accept that Peak oil is here, they will adopt the new dogma. In the Vatican Web Site they is a great little piece about how fast people converted from Catholicism to Protestantism in the 1500s. One of the fastest conversions in history, way faster than the adoption of Christianity at the end of the Roman Empire. Various reasons have been given for this rapid change (and the actions of Martin Luther and John Calvin can NOT be underestimated) but the main reason for the change was that Protestantism helped these people address the economic problems caused by the raise of the Middle Class in Northern Europe. In areas where Roman Law was in widespread use and had been for Centuries, Protestantism appeared and than disappeared as the Catholic Church addressed the same problems in Southern Europe. Note the change in religion was Caused by the Economic change in Society (In many ways the Subsequent "Religious Wars" were less about Religion than about which group of Europeans would rule Europe, the new Middle Class or the old Nobles/Peasant classes).
The raise of Communism is another example of a "New Religion" gaining a lot of Converts do to changes in the Economy. The Communists offered a solution to the Working class to the problems their were experiencing do to industrialization, thus many working class people "converted" to being Communists. No one else was offering a solution and something had to be done to address the problems (The right wing at the same time adopted Social Darwinism as how society should work including radical concepts of "private property" and "Free markets" and wondered why the Working Classes were embracing Communism).
The same situation will occur again when Peak Oil hits, people will have to drop their present belief system and adopt a new one. Our present belief system of an always expanding economic pie will have to be replaced by a belief system emphasizing working together for the common good (Return to Medieval Catholicism???) with strong beliefs regarding conserving energy and other things. It will be interesting what the new belief system will be. Today's belief system of expanding economic pie and that Free markets are the best way to divide up he resources of a society will not last long. A more communist system will have to be adopted but not Marxist, for the old Soviet Union killed that concept (Some of Marx's concepts will make it into the new belief system as will a good bit of Christianity, but the key is how will the belief system deal with a constantly dropping standard of living (as oil slowly disappears) AND keeping society together so to produce the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people.
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