If the "Dark Age" means to be rid of cars, then, by all means, bring on the dark age. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my car as much as any red-blooded American. I just realize that cars are an addiction, and one with vastly negative ramifications. The costs and danger are simply unsupportable. The fact that I'm forced to commute ten or so miles to work in the morning, and ten miles back (not a long commute by today's standards, I realize), when I could do the same work from my computer at home, makes me furious. It's purely habit at this point and time that we require this. Yes, remotely dealing with employees has it's own challenges. Since when aren't we up to dealing with a little challenge? You know what's really challenging? Paying disabled employees who end up in car accidents. Or replacing dead employees.
I'd gladly take a $2000 pay cut to work from home. I'd save that in gas, and maintenence on the car, to say nothing of the time saved. And to say even less about increasing my potential longevity.
The real problems with higher transportation costs is higher costs of goods produced far away. That could cause a more general economic alteration that many would see as a collapse. And, frankly, I'd be loathe to give up the benefits of a global economy (we've largely co-opted China, for goodness sake!). But I think that what would more likely occur is that some technology will replace the one that we use now. Perhaps fission, if nothing new comes up. Move stuff by electric rail. Not exactly a new idea.
Yes, there will be economic impact of changing over to the new technology. We're apparenly not forsighted enough to start now, so that it's in the pipeline when we run out of oil. And that's in part because we're waiting and hoping for some technology to be developed that's competitive cost-wise with fossil fuels. Something like, oh, I dunno, fusion power.
Might make sense to hedge our bets in the short run. So that we can spread the cost out over time. Otherwise the costs will bring more pain if they have to be crash implemented. Will it look like the Great Depression? I rather think that it'll be in the form of having smaller wardrobes, due to clothes not being disposably cheap as they are, due to them coming mostly from Taiwan and the like.
Frankly my closet is too small already. And maybe I can put somebody to work here doing textiles, since it will make more economic sense. Somebody who has lost their job in international shipping, perhaps.
Change is pain. But interestingly we've decided to live in a world where change is the norm, because of the benefits. No pain, no gain. So I think we, in history, are uniquely situated to make the best of what changes are to come.
Mike
P.S. Here's an important table of information:
http://www.bts.gov/publications/nationa ... 02_17.html
I'm tempted to coin a phrase (if somebody hasn't done so already) of "The Vehicular Holocaust."