" What happens when world petroleum production plateaus, as it has done for nearly a decade, and begins to decline, as it will do for the rest of our lives, has very little to do with physical questions. The forces that are taking the lead in the opening phases of the deindustrial age will be political, cultural, and psychological, not physical. About these issues the methods of the scientist and the engineer have very little useful to say, and most of that was drowned out decades ago by the louder voices of political opportunism and middle-class privilege. "

― John Michael Greer , The Blood of the Earth: An essay on Magic and Peak Oil