Prepare for A Petroleum-less Society

Was reading one of my favorite blogs today, IdleWorm. Dermot, the blogger, is a bit angrier than I am, but he frequently shows up with some links to news I hadn't seen (wow, news that a normal viewer of American media wouldn't see... go figure).

He was talking about a lecture he went to at CalTech regarding the collapse of the oil-based economy that we live in today. Unlike many researchers, Dr. David Goodstein apparently is predicting that we'll be in a society where we're forced to deal without oil within a decade... this scares the crap out of me since I'm going to be meeting my first child in less than a month!

The way I see it, I'm doing pretty well with the oil-less society to a certain extent. I already don't use a car - I take public transportation and live near two supermarkets, so I don't have to worry about getting to the store or to work. And, before my bike was stolen, I was using that to get around when I had to be somewhere the bus didn't go, or I wasn't familiar with the route.

But I'm terrible as far as my job goes. I'm a computer programmer - I'm useless if anything happens to computer use in the coming decade, particularly if we don't wean ourselves off the petroleum teat and move to more renewable forms of energy such as wind, solar, etc.

So... the options are... what?

I think it's time to start looking at other things than computers. I mean, I'm not going to quit my job or anything, but I do need to come up with something I can do, just in case our society doesn't get its act together in time to avoid the petroleum dearth. And even if it doesn't come as quickly as Dr. Goodstein is saying, it's probably not a bad idea to get the idea of real self-sufficiency going, particularly since my kid is going to have to deal with it (given the old 40-year timeline).