This is emblematic of a problem I see over and over here: assuming that the US is the world, or that problems in the US mean that civilization as a whole is unraveling.
Compare:
LinkAs Detroit Crumbles, China Emerges as Auto Epicenter
America's auto titans are dismantling their global empires. But across the Pacific, it's as if the global economic forces that have pummeled Detroit never struck. Chinese auto sales are up, and this year China is projected to displace Japan as the world's largest car producer.
On the whole, I think it's fair to say that this group is very insular and America-centric, and I believe this distorts the interpretation of peak oil. Think about it: most of the harsh effects usually attributed to peak oil are almost entirely American -- collapse of automakers, foreclosure crisis, ballooning foreign debt, collapse of banks etc. Why is it that peak oil is so selective? It seems very odd, and makes me think that the problem lies in America itself, not peak oil per se.
The default argument here is that peak oil is causing world crisis because problems are occurring in the US, and the US is the world.
I would argue for another interpretation: the US is a tired superpower whose model is failing, and it is being supplanted by younger, hungrier rivals such as China, India and Islam. This is an age old story, and very similar to how the UK supplanted Spain and the Dutch, or how the US supplanted the UK when their models began to wane, a la Paul Kennedy and The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.