The end of oil, then and now

IN 1977 JIMMY CARTER told the American people it was time for “an unpleasant talk” about the energy crisis. The off-putting subject matter—the greatest peacetime “threat our country will face in our lifetimes”—was not just the need to import more oil at higher prices than almost ever before as a result of America’s falling domestic oil production. It was the idea that America’s falling production was a harbinger of reserves running out everywhere. It was time to think of a world without oil.