Wolfgang, Brucie - good posts.

Brucie, I was hoping the greenhouse effect of having burned all those hydrocarbons would've kept things from getting too cold in the future (:-) but apparently things don't work that way.

We don't know what will happen. We know things will change and we won't all like it. When the first army with iron crossed swords with one carrying bronze, someone went home unhappy.

I'd say that as oil gets more expensive, the first to suffer will be those who can't pay for it, the loss of their demand will make life a bit easier for those who still have some money.
I think there will also be 'step' changes as one type of energy utilization takes over for another.
Airlines will suffer while railroads will prosper.
More nuclear power plants will be built.

There are far reaching ramifications beyond energy production because petrochem is used for so much else in society, from most plastics to most commercial fertilizers and so many new structures.

I agree that we don't seem to be making plans for the change, but I also distrust governments being able to predict the proper changes to make. Remember Bush predicting the 'hydrogen' economy with no sign of actually understanding the ramifications? That simply means government money funding big projects which will have very little to show for themselves, like missile defense or Enron's energy investments in India.

Barring the odd meteorite impact, the future will reward the flexible and rich and punish the ignorant and poor, comme d'habitude.

What governments can do is give tax breaks for research investments, rewarding the ones that are most successful/ efficient. This has its own problems, but it sure beats trying to predict what will be successful. It also has a side benefit of allowing the public to claim patent rights over successful inventions and processes.