I had to laugh at your post. Mostly because you just summed up about 2 dozen books (including mine) and an equal number of websites (including mine) in two sentences.

When I used to give talks I would finish with a joke about the irony of the talk itself. The fact that a group of highly educated people with access to more information than all previous generations combined needed me to tell them that in regards to oil:

A) yeah, we're running the f--k out. . .

and

B) Bush invaded Iraq to grab what's left

. . . is to me sort of funny. Only in a culture as dumbed down as ours could somebody like me earn a living from pointing out what should be obvious!