The sinking of my stomach and the pure shame can be felt just as hard-hitting as it will do the day my grand-children ask the question.

“You mean your generation based a majority of their economy, transport infrastructure, and manufacturing on a natural resource you knew was finite and running out? And you did nothing? Are you insane?”

The idea is insanity. To bet such critical parts of our society as transport and energy on an increasingly scarce resource as oil, goes against every human survival instinct. The financial “free market” has over-ridden sensible action.

Petrol prices are only going to go up, as the slick stuff becomes extinct. Anyone waiting for them to subside is fooling themselves.

The “free market” favours oil because you need to keep buying it, so it makes profits. Very nice profits, at that.

You know what doesn’t make such nice profits? Solar energy. After all, you don’t need to keep paying the piper for sun rays. This is the fundamental reason that I worry our switch to renewable sources of energy will fall too late.

I am personally ashamed of fellow humans that put profit before people. Somewhere along the way, the priorities got mixed about.

Now this isn’t a rant against capitalism, nor a cry for help against climate change. This is a statement of common sense – right now we are betting our future on something we know, for a fact, won’t be around in a few decades.

Would you buy a house in an area you knew is going to be knocked to the ground in 5 years time? Would you sign up for an 18 month phone contract with a company that has announced their shutting up shop in a few weeks?

As the day of oil extinction nears, serious investment and intelligence is needed in to alternative energy and ways to replace plastic. The “free market” stops those seeking profits spending too much time on it, so we need a philanthropic, non-profit market to take the slack.

Oil companies know that one day, they won’t have a business. They know that, eventually, they’ll have no product and the energy market won’t be worth what it is today. But they continue on, with almost the same excuse I have used for smoking – “I’ll stop by the time it does me damage. I can’t imagine that far in the future”. Short-term thinking, when so much is at stake, is a mug’s game.

We need a group of smart people to come together in a real initiative to solve this problem once and for all. Any takers?