While I fully concur that we need to curb our appetite for petroleum products, I wonder if anyone has considered what a "no oil" world would be like.
We would have to live within walking distance of work. While it would be feasible to run busses on stored solar power (batteries) and sort of rail would be out of the question. How would you make the railbed on which to lay the tracks? That would require large earth-moving equipment or large gangs of human laborers with shovels.
What do you do in areas where there is not enough sunlight OR wind to generate electricity? Pipe it in from elsewhere?
No more private vehicles? Bikes maybe but what about tires? And what about those of us who, because of age and/or infirmity, cannot ride a bike?
I heard somewhere -don't ask me where. If I could remember I'd tell you- that if you put up enough solar panels to supply the current electrical needs of the US, they would cover an area the size of the Atlantic Ocean. (Skeptic? Help me on this one). So I kinda question whether sun and wind are the answer.
Maybe if this was 150 years ago we could do without oil. But not now. Not without a radical change in the world economy. Without an effective means of mass transit, the major cities would starve because they couldn't get enough food once the local growing season ended.
The problem is that we live too far from everything; work, schools, shops, and recreation. We are too spread out to be fuel efficient and the only way it will EVER be cured is to either ban private autos altogether, or find a clean, inexhaustable, non poluting fuel source to power everything.
Some say Hydrogen fuel cells are the answer but what's the energy debt on manufacture? Never mind profit. Are they practical?

troll