This is a guest post by Jan Lundberg. It originally was published in Culture Change.

Upon the first global recession influenced by the peaking of oil extraction and record high prices, the question for "peak oilers" arises: does peak oil and energy decline mean great profits for modernizing industry, or is peak oil the beginning of huge changes in lifestyle toward sustainability after societal collapse?

Those were the two main concerns at play at the fifth annual meeting of the U.S. chapter of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO-USA), in Denver, Oct. 11-13.