Will Peak Oil Help Out With Climate Change?

Some scientists think we won't be able to pollute as much as many feared:

Conventional production of oil has been on a plateau since 2005, said James Murray, a professor of oceanography at the University of Washington, who chaired the panel.
As production of conventional oil, which is far easier to get out of the ground, decreases, companies have turned to unconventional sources, such as those in deep water, tar sands or tight oil reserves, which have to be released by hydraulic fracturing.
But those techniques tend to lead to production peaks that tail off quickly, Murray said.
The panelists said these trends belie the high-end emission scenario from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). That scenario, known as RCP 8.5, and often referred to as the "business as usual" scenario, has carbon dioxide emissions increasing through 2100.
"I just think it's going to be really hard to achieve some of these really high CO2 scenarios," Murray said.
David Rutledge, an engineering professor at the California Institute of Technology who studies world coal production, said the IPCC's "business as usual" scenario is unrealistic because it essentially assumes that growth of fossil fuels like coal will continue apace, which is unlikely.

Well, while it is good that climate change might not be as bad as scientists fear, we'll still have to adapt to a resource-limited world that most non-Amish can't really appreciate.