I agree with you, Dr. Hall. It seems that traditional academic structures won't help (at least not with the speed required) to educate higher-education students about energy issues in the comprehensive way that is required.

I totally disagree. when students find out how much it costs to fill up dad's SUV at their $40,000/year private college they'll learn soon enough.

The place they are more likely to learn about Peak Oil is here on TOD and other web based forums. I think we need to move beyond the formal education system, which portrays itslef as having exclusive hold on knowledge. I think that this bias comes through amply in this post that unless a student has done a recognised university course in Peak Oil, then they will have no knowledge at all and will not be able to act until they have doen such a course.

We need to recognise that the University of Life is going to be far more important than having a degree in this or that and then pigeon holing yourself into that specialisation. The future is going to belong to the adpatable generalist who will learn things as and when they need them. The whole higher education model, which takes fit healthy young people out of the productive economy, filling them with facts and then finally turning them loose at age 30 to tell the rest of us where we have gone wrong, is fast coming to an end.