The hell with $200-a-barrel oil. That’s so 2008. By 2010, we’re going to see crude oil reach $1000-per-barrel.

I say this with absolutely as much information at hand as the pundits who are now making headlines for themselves by their soggy $200 predictions. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. So I’m going to not know what’s happening at an even more dramatic level.

$1000-a-barrel oil! What a concept! Let’s look at a few of the implications, not all of which are negative, if you’re a hippy:

• Air travel, except to five or six hub cities, will end.
• The Interstate Highway System will moulder, since most people will only be able to drive locally.
• There will be no cars that are not hybrids on the few remaining roads, but even those will be only for the very rich who can afford $27-per-gallon gasoline.
• Vehicles that run on alternative forms of energy will proliferate. Most will achieve speeds up to 8 mph.
• There will be no food available that is not grown locally. The nation will quickly become overrun with chickens.
• All businesses that have any element involving transportation of people or goods will fold.
• Unable to go anywhere, people will communicate primarily by cell phone and e-mail, eventually crashing the Internet and plunging society back into the mid-20th Century.
• The countryside will empty out; 95% of the population will need to live in urban areas since transport will be too expensive for most people.
• The average one-bedroom co-op in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York will go for $50 million.
• The Federal Government will still be cutting generous arms deals with Saudi Arabia.

Of course, there are many things that could slow this process down. But none of them seem to be in place. Why should we believe that something will be done before it’s too late?

Isn’t it sort of too late already?