It does raise some questions however about allowing the market and oil companies to move us away from fossil liquids.  It is the goal of oil companies to make a profit extracting oil.  Expecting them to put themselves out of business by not extracting oil or doing it at a loss (before they absolutely have to) is not thinking rationally.

If the country wants sustainable, clean energy than the transition has to be legislated into the business climate.  And that transition is going to take years, regardless if we are proactive or reactive.  Call me utopian but I think a concerted push for non fossil fuels in concert with maintaining a viable oil industry is the only way to make the switch.  

Granted some inneficient oil people will go under even then.   Waiting for the peak to hammer us might be worse, however, from an oil industry perspective.  We all need to be thinking about how to manage this transition from a work force perspective.

And as a last comment I do tend to agree with some posters that there is no need to worry about the owners, senior executives in oil.  They will have money no matter what happens.  It is the people that work for a living that have no fall back position when jobs are cut.