Reply #28: My point, and the OP's, is that oil is the basis of our civilization...

[Ozymanithrax]

that covers the entire planet. There is nothing in our daily lives, or those of most of our fellow humans, that is not touched multiple times by a reliance on oil.

Retooling a civilization that encomopases an entire planet in a generation is a pretty tall order.

It isn't a matter of "if we want to." There is no force on earth today capable of getting 5 billion humans to march to the same tune. Here in the U.S. we are so reliant on oil in everything that we are probably the lest likely nation to create such a change.