On a Friday last fall, I headed to Yellow Springs, Ohio, to learn more about oil depletion and the imminent collapse of industrial civilization. I was on my way to the Second U.S. Conference on “Peak Oil” and Community Solutions, and the organizers had picked an ideal weekend for the affair. The skies were smeared an oily gray, and 4,300-horsepower military jets roared like horsemen of the apocalypse over the withered cornfields. Hurricane Rita was poised to rip into Texas and Louisiana the very next morning, and both NPR and the Christian radio stations were anticipating her landfall with…