Almost every other day a homeless person might shout out signs or visions of impending doom. Even in welcoming the second millennium a worldwide doomsday craze caught wildfire and even had some people building shelters to survive the cataclysm. During that time the scare was information technology related—computers would all crash, signaling the rest of the signs of Armageddon to follow. Well that didn’t happen. At most, computer systems just had trouble telling that ‘00’ pertains to 2000, not 1900 (as ‘99’ is 1999 or ‘86’ is 1986). That bug was fixed relatively easy. But what’s coming next cannot be remedied just as easy, and calling it a mere ‘bug’ would be a severe, fatal understatement.

The next doomsday scenario, if you would, is called peak oil—the end of the line in oil harvesting and production. Peak oil refers to the inevitable point in time when Earth can no longer cater to humankind’s hunger for carbon-based fuels, because there’s nothing left. For example, if 2010 would be the year all reserves would be depleted, oil production would then recede, and considering the fossil fuel need of an even bigger population by then, oil prices would go up in the sky, economies dependent on oil would crash in on themselves, and even wars in pursuit of resources could possibly occur.

Professionals and experts have all agreed peak oil is a phenomenon waiting around the corner. And for all of those who know what that means, high hopes are placed on today’s world leaders to make the right decisions immediately to preempt a fall out ridiculously caused by what everyone wants so much—oil.