James Howard Kunstler, who has a new post-peak-oil novel out this week (World Made by Hand, which I hope to review soon) hits the nail on the head in his weekly commentary:

I’m sure our political leaders will mount a campaign to rescue the futureless infrastructure of suburbia.  It will necessarily be an exercise in futility.  But it has already started.  That’s what the swindle of ethanol has been all about.  And the touting of hybrid cars, and the flimflam of "energy independence."  Even the "environmental" crowd" squanders most of its attention these days on how to keep all the cars running on something other than gasoline. They don’t question the assumption that we will remain a car-dependent society.