Dr SamSam Bahktiari, ex senior exec in Irans National oil company describes oil as the master dominoe. Indeed it is. Everything else depends on it, including food. The massive increases in yields since WWII have a lot to with oil: pesticides, fertilizers and machinery. Once oil production set in, there is going to be less food and famine is going to become a much bigger problem than it is today.

If I have a criticism of this article it is that it presents a notion that at will be business as usual, sort of. After Peak Oil it will not be, unless we can crack the net energy issue. How do we manage economies without growth? Our capital markets work because there is growth.

Neoclassical economics has made a right royal stuff up in terms of how we have managed oil. They really need to get their thinking caps on to determine how we can manage economies without growth.

Then there is the issue of government, or lack of it. Our political leaders really are lamentably poor. There are one or two stars: Turnbull is one, but even he is locked into a system carefully cloreographed by plodders. And what plodders they are! Very, very ordinary, to a man (and woman).

We need someone who is honest, not just that he doesn't lie, but intellectually honest, someone who also has vision and the charisma to lead. We need a real statesmen. Energy is the defining issue of the times and the current crop of plodders are just not going to do anything worthwhile. They haven't even understood the problem, or if they have, they are lacking in the necessary honesty, vision, inspiration and courage to do anything about it.