As Richard Heinberg in Power Down and James Kunstler in The Long Emergency have pointed out, peak oil means it's time to pay the piper for our century-long fossil fuel feast. The fact that the global credit meltdown and our ongoing Greater Depression directly coincided with peak world oil production is not a mere coincidence. When it comes to hydrocarbons, we can no longer live like there's no tomorrow. Our excess growth was predicated on cheap energy, but now we will be forced to grow down.