peak oil frustration

Sometimes I'm a little frustrated with the people on the peak oil mailing list I subscribe to. Many of them don't want to hear any discussion of any potential solution to our energy troubles other than returning to a pre-industrial society. In fact, many are cheered at the thought, somehow thinking such a "simpler" lifestyle would be better. I find that disturbing.

I'm a believer in the ability of technology to make our lives better. Anyone who isn't has been paying very selective attention to developments in human welfare over the past few hundred years. Certainly problems have cropped up along the way, but proposing to solve them by returning to the medieval period is a cure far worse than the disease. As Bertrand Russell said, "Intelligence, it might be said, has caused our troubles; but it is not unintelligence that will cure them. Only more and wiser intelligence can make a happier world."