Furthermore, something else that hasn't penetrated the body politic: the only reason world oil production hasn't peaked is not because of a sudden discovery of massive unknown reserves, as David Brooks suggested in a recent idiotic, excoriated-by-the-internet column, but because energy companies are pursuing "unconventional" resources like tar sands and oil shale. All of these produce far more greenhouse gasses than the storybook crude you picture bubbling out of the ground (the role of natural gas production is also a hugely complicated issue, so for now we'll leave it at this: potentially poisoning vast swaths of people in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio might just turn out to be worth it!)