Jerome a Paris, a diarist at Dailykos.com, has been writing for a while about environemental and energy-related issues facing the world. I first learned about the concept of "peak oil", or the idea (gaining more support in the scientific community, as it turns out) that we are getting very close to reaching the peak in the world's ability to produce oil… that after that point, the amount of oil the world can produce will start to drop. Unfortunately, the demand for oil is only increasing, and at a pretty fast rate. Jerome's diary has a pretty good summary article of the concerns here, which refers to this excellent article detailing the problem here. Jerome also has another article here which states that the world's four biggest oil fields are in decline.
All are worth reading; they really make it clear that even leaving global warming considerations, the world *HAS* to start thinking NOW about how to reduce/eliminate our dependence on oil and think about other, preferrably renewable, sources of energy.
