Peak oil’s slippery slope

Both President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, when questioned about their subterranean public-approval ratings, have repeatedly asserted their administration will be vindicated by history. After you’re done guffawing, consider this: They just might be right.

Why? In a phrase, peak oil.

For those unfamiliar with peak oil—and here I include Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, most of the state Legislature and even the California Energy Commission—it is derived from the geological phenomenon of oil-field depletion, first elaborated on in 1956 by M. King Hubbert, then a geophysicist for Shell Oil.

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