Did you know you can extract oil from whales? Conspiracy!
We must reduce our dependence on foreign marine mammals!
God willing, they’ll be imposing their national concerns on numerous bio-regions from within the safety of a federally-mandated gay marriage.
That’s the dream, anyway.
Probably driving around in gasoline powered autos, just like today. Certainly more efficient ones. Maybe more electric ones. We are nowhere near running out of oil.
I currently live without a horse or grass roof, does that make me pretty B.C.? In my mind a living room without petroplastics would mean we’ve progress beyond them. Try some Xanax if you’re that worried.
Whale oil is good for anxiety.
Translation: The imperial energy-guzzling version of the United States that I have known for my entire adult life is unsustainable! I’m scared!
The United States will continue to exist, although we might discover that we have to make do with a standard of living closer to what existed in 1920 than 1960 – smaller houses, fewer luxuries, less travel. But it’s not the end of the world.
Nah, but we may be pretty close to the point where less oil is available each year than the year before, with the consequent effect on oil prices.
We’ll never run out, but there’s no guarantee that, even a decade from now, we’ll be able to depend on petroleum to anywhere near the extent we do now.
One of the reasons I’d like to see some serious investment in mass transit is as an insurance policy against the possibility of peak oil.
Fortunately, we shifted to burning petroleum products in time to avert an economic catastrophe as the result of ‘peak whale.’ 
Even if things like that DO have to be made out of plastic, I’m kinda suspicious of the idea that the cost of oil is that big a cost driver in such products. Most of a barrel of oil goes into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel (kerosene). I’m sure that if oil went to $200/barrel, products with a lot of plastics in them would increase in price, but I doubt it would be by enough to cause the American way of life to fall apart, and it would affect people a hell of a lot less than the resulting high gas prices.
They’ll have jetpacks by then.
Heh heh.
He said “69.”
The same thing that will happen to every big oil importer. Sooner or later, those countries that have oil to sell will decide to make dear what they have and those who have squandered theirs like us or those who never had oil reserves like Japan will be paying thru the nose.
On our way out, the price of oil and gasoline world wide will rise to the point where our agriculture, which is accurately described as our means of converting petroleum to food, will be unsustainable. Rising prices for diesel combines and transportation and distribution of food along with more costly petrofertilizers will push food prices thru the roof and make a backyard garden seem worth the work.
Oh, have your fun at the expense of this aging chicken little. I really do not have a dog in this fight. If whistling past the graveyard does it for you, go for it.
But I ask anyone even mildly interested in what the next 50 years might look like to take a look at this, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25458.htm , a 70+ min video here presented in 8 parts. Described by one wag as the most boring yet most important video you have will ever see. it is worth a look, IMHO.
And, TubaDiva, thanks again for the bump. I have decided that I can more directly address this issue in a new thread, http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=564403Let’s . Anyone interested is invited to tag along.
You may immediately close this thread at the request of the OP. Cecil Is God.
If Cecil were god, we’d be burning snark for fuel instead of oil.
Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again once the money’s gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground
Hey guys, you didn’t read the OP carefully enough. He didn’t say the what starting point was. Clearly he meant to start the clock 50 exactly years before the end of the USA. What a bunch of idiots!!
Besides, plastic is nothing more than hydrogen and carbon. Plenty of that around.
Oh, so that’s what that whole Revolutionary War business was about.
May I suggest the OP retreat to the bunker he built to deal with the Y2K crisis which very nearly ended all civilization?
If the OP is really 69, he should remember that we’ve been on the verge of running out of oil for the past 50 years. I bet a lot of people who live in the Gulf area think we have too much of it nowadays.
Well, adhay, you’re finally in a forum where I can casually call you a fucking moron with no hesitation whatsoever.
By the way, I kept an eye on the Lenin thread and was amused by your efforts to keep it bumped. I was also amused by your passive-aggressive attempts to tell people, including me, to shut up, while at the same time flailing desperately to get them to say how good your ideas are.
Now go on and say something incoherent in response.