Yes, we are at a fork in the road, and panic over oil prices could stampede politicians to toss environment under the bus (as evidenced by renewed efforts to open protected offshore sites and ANWR). It doesn't take much thought, however, to realize the folly of that path. After we've sacrificed every protected area, maybe (eight years from now) it slows the decline of domestic production, but it doesn't reverse it, and what then? The most likely scenario would be ever-increasing dependence on coal and the prospect of economic calamity in an overheated world. Let's hope that voters realize there is a shared agenda.
We've heard for decades that protecting the environment has become an American value, but so far it's been easy. Values only come to the surface when tested, and this one is about to face its biggest test ever.

MIchael Tomasky and Rich Lowry briefly touch on the political reality of climate change on blogginheads today:

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/12072

They summarized the issue as one of abstraction (climate change many years in the future) vs. concreteness ($4 gasoline today.)

As for any synergy between peak oil movement and climate change movement - I believe that CTL alone blows any of that out of the water. With the EIA projecting CTL at several million barrels per day in future scenarios it looks likely that peak oil mitigation (if it goes down the CTL path, on top of radical expansion of tar sand development) will make CO2 reduction impossible.