Having spent some months in Guatemala and Nicaragua (both in rural and urban settings), I would doubt this in these cases at least.  

In the rural settings, many people are dependent on cash crops to provide a small amount of cash to buy food.  (I watched a woman drying a bag of wormy beans in the sun.  This was supposed last about 6 weeks for here family. The cash was derived from picking coffee for day wages--one bean at a time.)  When the coffee prices began to plummet due to the World Bank destabilizing the coffee market by funding coffee plantations in Viet Nam, these compasinos were fleeing into the cities.  Their way of surviving is very much influenced by the global economy.  

Cities are densely populated and rely on fuel to transport food into the urban areas.  I would be very worried if fuel would become more than just expensive but also scarce.

The spectre of starvation would be very real in Nicaragua and Guatemala should fuel become scarce.  

Let's not even talk about what global warming has planned for them.

In sum, Simmons' is overly optimistic about the effects of peak oil on third world countries.  Population densities would exceed the carry capacities of man of the places I have seen.  Extrapolating to cities like Mexico City, etc. would not bode well for the populations under severe peak oil conditions.

If the Devil himself wanted to design a perfect trap for attracting morons, he couldn't have done better than this season's New York International Auto Show at the Jacob Javits Center.

http://www.oriononline.org/pages/oo/curmudgeon/index_NY_Auto_Show.html

Energy guru Simmons steps down as CEO
By LYNN J. COOK
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Matthew Simmons, energy market rabble-rouser and author of Twilight in
the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy , is
stepping down as chief of the investment bank he founded in 1974.

Michael Frazier, who joined Simmons & Company International in 1992 and
became president in 2001, will take the helm of the company's day-to-day
operations.

Simmons will stay on as chairman and remain involved in shaping the
firm's strategies.

What Simmons says is the decline is gradual, and the effects range from a recessin to a depressionBut, now to extrapolate to world wide hunger. That's just stupid. Simmons says, there is a certain level of oil that can be produced, for all practical purposes, forever. Sure, this amount may be up to 50% less than today (and more expensive), which has huge consequences on our way of life and economy, but you guys need to take a pill.  

The world is not ending, I repeat the world is not ending. Now, go back to your daily lives.

In recent days, signs of economic and social stress caused by high oil prices in Latin America -- now being felt most prominently in the Caribbean and Central America -- have multiplied. Gasoline prices in all Central American countries are above $4 per gallon -- more than many Central Americans earn in a day.

Given the relative poverty of these countries, the high price of fuel constitutes a heavy economic burden on governments trying to subsidize fuel prices and on individuals forced to pay fuel prices. With no relief in sight, the economic and political impact of oil prices is likely to get worse -- and even become the primary regional issue in the months ahead.

The pressure drove Central American leaders to visit Colombia on Sept. 13 to examine its industry for using ethanol as an alternative energy source to petroleum products. And on Sept. 14, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva invited the group to visit Brazil to do the same. These visits constitute the first high-level considerations by Central American leaders of the need to find alternative energy sources for their petroleum-dependent economies as they face increasing problems at home in coping with persistently high oil prices.

In the most extreme example of price-related unrest to date, a proposed 19.7 percent gasoline price hike by the Honduran government along with restrictions aimed at curbing gasoline consumption prompted taxi and bus drivers in the capital to protest, forcing the government to reduce the price increase to 9.9 percent. And on Sept. 9, the first widespread civil unrest to hit the country in years occurred as protesters blocked roads and demonstrated nationwide against energy price increases. With presidential and congressional elections scheduled for November, energy prices are likely to dominate the campaign -- and how voters cast their ballots.

Other Central American nations are facing the exact same problem, and are heading in the exact same direction. The dependence of Central American countries on power plants fired by petroleum products such as oil, gasoline and diesel further compounds the problem posed by high fuel costs. For example, Honduras depends on petroleum fuels for close to half of its power generation, Guatemala generates 60 percent of its power from gasoline-fired plants and Nicaragua gets 85 percent of its electricity from oil-powered plants. Consequently, power rationing is becoming increasingly likely, something which will further inhibit economic activity and increase social unrest.

Caribbean nations are feeling the pinch, too. On Sept. 12, the Dominican Republic announced emergency restrictions on gasoline consumption in an effort to reduce demand, and Jamaica already has seen mass protests as a result of fuel price increases. Thirteen Caribbean nations signed a deal with Venezuela establishing the PetroCaribe initiative, in which Caracas will sell 200,000 barrels of oil per day at market prices, but in the form of a loan that the Caribbean buyers will be able to repay over 25 years at 1 percent interest. Even with this assistance, in the long term these countries at best will be racking up enormous amounts of debt that will worsen their overall financial standing. In the worst case, they will increase their debt loads and become unable to pay even reduced energy bills. In either case, they likely will face more trouble in the near term.

South America is starting to show the strain as well. Paraguayan state energy firm Petroleos Paraguayos recently said it is operating at a loss because of the need to fund fuel subsidies, and Suriname's public transportation system was brought to a halt Sept. 12 by drivers protesting a government decision to nearly double gasoline and diesel prices. The Chilean government, already facing a significant natural gas shortage due to an interruption of exports from Argentina, recently announced a 10-month subsidy program to cap gasoline at $5.27 per gallon, saying that without the cap, prices would have hit $6.37 in August. Santiago is being forced to use revenues from copper sales to fund the subsidy.

With no relief in the form of significantly lower oil prices seemingly in sight, the fuel-price problem should only get worse in the months ahead for those Latin American countries that are net importers of oil.

In contrast, for leading exporters such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil and Mexico, energy prices are filling state coffers to the brim. This is resulting in a seeming separation of the region into, quite literally, the haves and have-nots with respect to oil. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in particular is taking advantage of the desperation of his neighbors to trade cheap oil for increasing political influence in the region. And every country that signs a preferential oil deal with Chavez represents another blow to U.S. influence in the region -- influence that already has declined precipitously. Further eroding that influence is a key goal of Chavez's foreign policy, and the impact of high oil prices is playing perfectly into his hands.

With the exception of Brazil, however, the region's main energy producers are all actively driving their energy sectors into the ground -- risking their good fortune and threatening their future stability. Venezuela's Petroleos de Venezuela and Mexico's Petroleos Mexicanos are in considerable financial trouble thanks to heavy tax burdens, low investment, restrictive regulations and generally poor resource management.

Moreover, gas and oil production in Bolivia, and now Ecuador, has proven to be highly vulnerable to the political activism of their large population of peasants and impoverished indigenous peoples. Argentina, with the region's third-largest natural gas reserves, is so poorly managing the sector that it had to cut off exports to Chile and increase imports from Bolivia just to keep its own lights on.

If these countries are unable to improve their political and regulatory environments to allow for the proper management of state energy companies and the reserves they control, which is unlikely, regional energy output probably will begin to decline, possibly as early as 2007. Argentina's natural gas output already is declining.

A perfect-storm scenario would see oil prices remaining high with output falling in Venezuela, Mexico, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina and Colombia -- the last of which is scheduled to become a net oil importer in a few years despite relatively good resource management. The result would be a regional energy crisis of catastrophic economic, social and political proportions. Such a scenario is not beyond the realm of possibility given present circumstances. Nonetheless, circumstances can change -- especially as regards the price of oil. So a perfect storm cannot be said to be imminent just yet.

What is likely is that in the next few months, however, Latin America will see increasing economic distress and social unrest as oil prices continue to punish energy importers in the region, further separating those with energy resources from those without. With a barrage of national legislative or presidential elections approaching in the region between now and the end of 2006 -- including races in, among other key nations, Argentina, Honduras, Chile, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua and many Caribbean nations -- energy issues could subject the region to a bumpy ride.

having seen hills, weathered mountains (eastern US)  and  mountains western US  they and I are not looking forward to the peaks

Here in Europe our life is oil dependent. But this will not become a lethal threat to us. There is of course going to be a shift of lifestyle. We will just have to pay a higher percentage of our incomes for energy and gradually there has to be a shift to more energy efficiency and a strong growth in the field of alternative energy.

Here in Berlin natural gas prices will rise once again by more than 10% this year. Bad for the retailers, because this will reduce consumption. But is this really a pitty?

The stories from which I wrote these short notes were generally in mainstream media.  I should probably add UK due to the recent fuel protests, but maybe that's more political.