Left Behind: Oil Armageddon

Yesterday The New York Times Magazine plunged into peak oil hysteria: the belief not only that the planet's oil production is declining, which may or may not be true, but that the law of supply and demand is going out the window too. In the real world, gradually increasing prices are a signal encouraging consumers to conserve and entrepreneurs to invest in alternative sources of energy. On Planet Peak Oil, we wake up one morning and discover that the world's petroleum has disappeared overnight, in some ecological equivalent of the Rapture.

Steven "Freakonomics" Levitt thrashes the Times article here. The AP looks into getting energy from cow patties here. Guidelines for writing Left Behind fan fiction here.