It is not necessary that a pastoral and deprived lifestyle be the only alternative to an addiction to petroleum. At least, it wasn't back when, although it certainly looks like its coming to that now.

In fact, we've had plenty of warning about this, almost half a century, to realize that our extravagant lifestyle, marketed to us because of its supposed economic benefits, was doomed to failure. But the defenders and promoters of that economic model, for their own selfish reasons, have fought bitterly to see that the alternatives were never implemented or even considered. The oil crisis has been foreseen since the early 70s, and probably even earlier by our leaders. Eisenhower saw it coming, that was the true reason for "Atoms for Peace".

"Avaliability, usefulness, ease of production, and the amount of stored energy per unit" are just synonyms for "highly profitable". We could have had our cake and et it too, except for our failure to anticipate the inevitable. Perhaps "failure" is too kind a word; it implies error, not criminal negligence. I saw this coming as a college undergraduate, and the conservatives were already in denial.

We are the world's greatest consumers of energy, both in relative and absolute terms, and the short-term economic benefits will be paid for in long term economic costs. Even some modest alternatives, such as more rail transport, and more energy-efficient automobiles, and investment in alternative energy technologies, such as nuclear, coal liquefaction and increased natural gas infrastructure, could have delayed this day of reckoning we are now going through. The Europeans saw it coming, and they managed to attain a comparable standard of living using considerately less petroleum. But they didn't have any oil of their own. We did, and we squandered it shamelessly.

Energy is the ability to do work. It is generated solely through an increase in the entropy of fuels. It does not arise magically from the enlightened entrepreneurial fantasies of commercial interests.