slimebeast have you ever been to Africa?
because if you have you wouldn't be saying that "mass starvation, and mass spreading of aids" has been "taken care of".
Dont forget we also use oil to produce plastic not just as petrol so if we run out our way of living will totally be destroyed.

Oil (common crude) can be made with a high temperature, high pressure furnace, and common landfill garbage.

If we "run out" of oil to the point of not being able to make plastic, we'll make it ourself.

Of course, that method is not economical (or environmentally friendly) to sustain our "oil economy". Just saying that if we need oil for a specific purpose, its not very difficult to obtain.

tombi:

 I believe all he was saying is that massive starvation and spread of aids on the scale of the doomsday predictions has been taken care of, and Africa is improving (slowly but surely).  Its just a matter of education and progress.

Before oil could run out, we may replace it with a renewable resource. Also, if oil does run out, it'll be back in a few million years, so it's okay!

And about AIDS, cheap medicines are coming into Africa as we speak. Not very fast, but still. AIDS will probably kill a few more million people, but again, it's not the same worry as in the '80s or '90s when people in the west were afraid of the disease to spread all over the world.

Well, oil is made from the remains of dinosaurs compressed and heated over millions of years. We have the technology to compress and heat biomass to create new oil (see the butterball factory for an example), but it only creates the lightweight oils useful for heating and such, not useful to make gasoline. This is because we use chicken remains as the inputs. If we could grow our own dinosaurs, we could make the crude stuff and have a renewable supply of gasoline for our cars. Some scientists tried this with advanced DNA cloning technology, but then Dennis Nedry came along and turned off the electric fences, and basically ruined it for everybody. You think living near a nuclear power plant is scary, how about a T Rex in your rearview mirror?

HAHA... Think about it, we spend billions of dollars to genetically restore dinosaurs, just to smash em up and turn them into oil.... I think PETA would be pissed LOL

Don't worry, just stay calm and remember they only respond to movement!

The real question on this issue is do we have enough supply at cheap enough prices to last us through until we can come up with that new technology to replace oil?  There are a lot of things like oil sands and oil shale that can be utilized if they become cost-effective, but even at that point there will be a big shock to the economy as gas prices would have hit $5/6+ per gallon, basically increasing the price of everything (transport, you know). 

oil runs out or alien invasion first? I am guessing the later.

That article is the most accurate. You could say, in 1850, "Holy smokes guys, we're gonna run outta trees to make our trains go! Look at these latest statistics!!"

The market system always works. It's never failed us. That doesn't mean, for SURE, that we won't suffer horrible deaths in the future because we run out of oil (that doesn't even make sense, just ride your bike), but I would trust the free market to come up with the energy solution.

Think about it: If you had the chance to invent/discover a new type of energy to power machines and automobiles, you would patent it and make billions of dollars! Money is the only motivation people have to get away from oil. And when oil reaches $100, then $200, then $250 a barrel, the market will act.

Innovation is what has allowed humanity to survive for so long. Check out this website, it explains how we would get fuel for our fusion reactors (when we invent them):

http://www.asi.org/adb/02/09/he3-intro.html

Pretty much says that, when we invent fusion, we can get 25 tons from the moon to power the US for 1 year. And theres a 10,000 year supply on the moon.