I've considered this whole die-off issue as well.  Ive' read Overshoot and Collapse this or that.  I've had problems with industrial society for a long time, and have mentioned on other boards my reading of Huxley's Island years ago.  I drive through a city like Los Angeles and I think "what a bloody mess."  And as a student of Buddhism, I'm quite familiar with and readily accept the concept of impermanence and suffering.  With that in mind, I do have to ask:  why does the idea of die-off wreck Delaney's life?  Is he so self-important?  Does he consider his species so important?  And this idea that one must take steps to preserve the self:  that's nothing more than what got us into this mess in the first place, at least from several perspectives.

The idea that an individual needs to propagate his/her genes, his/her name (one of the most idiotic concepts I've come across) by winning the "overshoot lottery" etc is just plain self-serving, self-important, and pathetic in my mind. Yet that's what I'm commonly hearing: "Humans are in overshoot, there are too many of us, and I'VE GOT TO SAVE MYSELF AND MY FAMILY."  Can't you agree there is something just a little pathetic about this.

And let's face it, the reason Delaney doesn't give a date or timeline is because he doesn't know.  He's got a feeling, I'm sure.  Jevon was stockpiling for the end of the coal age oh so long ago. His feeling didn't pan out for at least a hundred years after his death.  Lot of good that stockpiling did.

Does this mean we don't have problems?  Of course not.  But the self-serving whining and moaning and pittying for self and species that I come across when dealing with the issue of peak oil is rather nauseating at times.  It's like a car crash, I suppose: people are obsessed with the morbid.

Propagate is what species do.  They expand until the environment puts brakes on them.  Humans are trickier than other species.  But evolution no doubt leads invariably down a planetary path like the one humans have taken.  What humans are doing is no different than other species, only on a broader scale.  And certainly no different than what mother nature has done time and time again--asteroids, volcanoes, ice ages, and the likes.

So with that in mind, I'm just baffled when I hear people who read about peak oil and then start moaning and blathering about their livelihoods, their kids, etc etc etc.  I have two kids.  I'm in the same boat as everyone else.  But the common response--"woe is me" and "I've got to build a lifeboat" is annoying.