Here's an excellent quick summary of the fossil fuel age, and the quandary it now leaves us in. 

I don't like being an alarmist, but the aftermath of Peak Oil may happen quicker, and be worse than even I ever imagined! I just read "Eating Fossil Fuels" by Dale Allen Pfeiffer, (See http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html ), and personally I'm very alarmed by it.

What's especially maddening to me, is that, as usual, we could actually do a lot to mitigate the foreseeable effects of Peak Oil and Climate Change, by acting NOW! Instead, this country just stands there on the deck of the "Titanic" arguing about whether the "iceberg" seen up ahead is real or not! Just turn the damn boat!!

Pfeiffer's article really validates my long-held theory that the only sustainable future for agriculture is to have many more farmers (millions!), growing much more nutritious food, on very small farms, and using natural farming techniques and handtools such as the scythe, and the u-bar digger, etc., instead of machines.

I'm not the only one thinking along these lines. In "Growing Food After Peak Oil", Richard Heinberg states that the key to continued food production after Peak Oil is more farmers!40-50 million of them!(Wow! That would be a lot of scythes! I'd better get busy!) He's talking about farms ranging in size from 3-50 acres farmed mostly with hand labor. ( See http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Archives2008/HeinbergFiftyMillion.html )