Crude Awakening

So our demand, regardless of supply, is unlikely to decrease anytime soon.

Well, the need for those hydrocarbon materials has been increasing for 150 years and will go on increasing especially because the world's population is increasing. The poorer parts of the world want to increase their standard of living, which inevitably means using more energy. Fossil fuels are our principal source of energy.

You used an interesting word: "need." Do we need the oil or is it something that we have just become dependent on?

We have certainly become dependent on it. This is a habit that will be very, very difficult to break.

Knowing human behavior and how hard the habit is to break, we probably won't, in all likelihood, break it.

I think we will not. One of the reasons I wrote the book was in the hope that enough people will become aware of the problem and we will be a little better prepared.