Issues on Oil Depletion

Last week I was talking about oil depletion to a variety of people. I discussed with them what I learned in class. Some people didn't believe me about how one day we aren't going to have enough oil to thrive off of and others said, "well we will just have to find another way to make oil or to supply it." The people that I spoke to made it seem so hopeful and possible that it is so easy to do such a thing. People don't realize how much energy and cost goes into refining oil and drilling it out of the ground. I think that we should combine ways to seek other mechanisms besides just cheap oil. In the book, The Party's Over, by Richard Heinburg he mentions ways or alternatives to survive. "We have enormous amount of existing technical knowledge. It's just a matter of putting it all together." Another quote, "If society were to develop solar-energy technologies, reduce it's population and its demands in resources, and develop a steady-state economy to replace the present one based on unending growth, our species' future could be rosy indeed." I believe that we can do this, like in class people are afraid to take risks. They don't want to take the risk and step out of the nutshell to change environmental issues in Society. Most people care about short term effects instead of long term. Class discussion made me think about all of this and now my family thinks this class is making me a tree hugger. On the other hand I think it is educating me about the environment that I live in and how humans are exclusively damaging the biosphere.