Remembered more for his apocalyptic pessimism than his economics, 18th-century parson and thinker Thomas Malthus reasoned that too many people and too little food would eventually lead to rampant starvation. It didn't. Two hundred years later, the same rigid law of supply and demand is being applied to oil. There is only so much black gold left, doomsdayers say, and a fuel-starved world is looking at the bottom of the barrel.

If we are truly reaching the end of petroleum production–a scenario known as "peak oil"–there are all kinds of gloomy predictions one could make. Facing the future of $200 barrels of oil, analysts are already using terms like "financial tsunami." They predict that inflation will skyrocket with the price of gas, creating a flashback of mid-70s stagflation. Commuters will become energy refugees, abandoning their homes and their SUV's and invading the cities. In the meantime, production costs will cripple manufacturers, a scenario that would turn Central Canada's factories into a scrap heap of rust. "I can't think of any upside to $200-oil," former EnCana chief executive Gwyn Morgan told the National Post.

Yet if history is any example, ingenuity can trump disaster. After all, we live in a market economy that can adjust, innovate, and progress. After Malthus's famous end-of-days scenario, necessity mothered invention: diversified agricultural techniques appeared, legislation led to cheaper food imports and the Industrial Revolution made for greater efficiencies. Almost two hundred years later, the same thing happened. Paul Ehrlich predicted in his 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb that exploding demographics and an imploding food supply would literally decimate the U.S., leaving only 22 million survivors. But the so-called "Green Revolution" stepped in. Pesticides, irrigation projects, and synthetic nitrogen fertilizer contributed to a massive agricultural advance. And population wise, there was another significant development: The Pill.

Stepping gingerly towards the crystal ball, one could also say that there could be unforeseen benefits to the so-called era of "peak oil," especially for Canada, a stable democracy sitting on lots of energy. A commodities boom will strengthen our international stature, bolster the clout of provincial governments, reinvigorate our cities, and reward entrepreneurship. And it could make us a little skinnier, too.

Some potential benefits:

National Post