@Dogs Rule: Normally I would be as optimistic as you are, but I have some reasons to have doubts here. There's an enormous political inertia, in the meantime stupid solutions like ethanol from corn are adopted, which cause famine and rises in food prices.
I don't think there has ever been such a serious situation before. It's fair to say that oil is the most important raw ingredient of today's civilization, how does that compare to any previous crisis? I'd love to think that the free market could take care of this issue, but instead I think it's one which would require massive political will and balls, which frankly no one seems to have. It's easier to just keep feeding the masses on the idea that today's society is sustainable without a massive change in energy policies.
What we have a history of, is of dramatic and sudden changes in the economy, which is a non-linear system. Dramatic events and realizations can cause the economy to crash, and when it's about something as serious as oil, the shit may hit the fan pretty soon after that. How do you think people will react if the oil price continues to increase as much as it has lately?
Let me put it another way: the current economic system is based on a necessity of infinite growth, how will that work when the realities of finite resources start kicking in?
Just one more thing - it seems to me that serious investment in renewables and nuclear power should have started yesterday. Overhauling society's use of energy is not something which can be done quickly without serious repercussions. We could well end up with coal replacing oil (until Peak coal happens), which would be even worse than now due to more pollution. There's the possibility of the so called "clean coal", but that's an unproven technology with waste issues which are even worse than with nuclear power.
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