World oil production will thereafter continue to decline at a dwindling rate. Governments will have the highest priorities for transportation fuels during an emergency. But this time the oil shortage will be permanent. Thus the question is not whether but when the foreseeable permanent oil crunch will occur. This next paralyzing and permanent oil shock will not be solved by any redistribution patterns or by economic cleverness, because it will be a consequence of pending and inexorable depletion of the world's conventional crude oil supply.
Few economists can bring themselves to accept that the global oil supply is geologically finite.
After the associated economic implosion, many of the world's developed societies may look like today's Russia. Those democratic governments in power when the global oil production peaks will all be cast out by their voters unless they have made major efforts to stave off the inevitable fuel crisis. Professor Watt advises everybody to plan their lives as if the price of gasoline will be 100 dollars per gallon in ten years. And Professor Albert Bartlett of the University of Colorado defines modern agriculture. Modern agriculture is the use of land to convert petroleum into food.