i had the same objections as you when i first read the work of a certain Jay Hanson. it was his writing that first turned me on to this issue, and his site is a fine source of info: http://www.dieoff.org/
then i began to delve a little deeper and was shocked and disturbed by what i read. i believe that my initial objections were a result of my misunderstanding a complex issue.
as with another thread on this site, i don't wish to put myself across as an "expert" (apart from anything else, i have a tendency to mistrust 'experts'). i've read a hell of a lot on the subject, but my conclusions are my own, and open to criticism and ridicule.
to address your points... as for oil companies "being aware of the impending disaster"? on one level they are. but on another they're not.
Petroconsultants released a report a few years back (it cost $32,000 per copy! - so had a fairly select market) that basically debunked the "economic" model of future oil production and announced gravely that world oil production would peak by 2010 at the latest (probably 5-6 years sooner). since then a few oil companies (Shell and BP most noticeably) have acknowledged this fact and made great fanfare about becoming 'diversified energy companies'.
sadly despite the fanfare, this actually isn't happening on any scale beyond Public Relations. Kenneth Deffeyes in his book _Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage_ points out that oil is just far more profitable than diversifying. what's more, thanks to supply and demand, it's going to get *more* profitable as the shortages start, not less. a shareholder-owned corporation in a capitalist economy simply can't justify knowingly spending a cent in a less profitable area. it's not a corporations function to consider the social / long-term effects of its policy; it is a corporations single defining purpose to maximise profit on investment.
you're right when you say "overpopulation has little to do with wealth". but it does have everything to do with energy and resources. you state that overpopulation "quickly recedes once a country develops". true; but only on one level. a person in a 'developed country' ends up consuming many times more energy and resources than a person in a developing nation. that's kind of what we mean by "developed" sadly.
also, the road to development is paved with cheap oil. the rest of the world just isn't going to develop (barring, say, fusion power - i don't utterly discount a science-fiction solution). we're the privileged few... but i suspect everyone here at U-Know is aware of that.
you're wrong when you state "only a small percentage of the world is living at sustenance level". by definition, if they are living, they are at sustenance level. there are 6 billion of us at sustenance level or above. those physically dying of starvation are the only ones who aren't. sustenance level is bleak.
however the only reason that so many can exist at any level at all is cheap oil. AA Bartlett once said that "Modern agriculture is the use of land to convert petroleum into food", and while that's pretty extreme, there's actually something to it. Take a look at http://www.dieoff.org/page171.htm and have a look at the section "Oil and World Agriculture". you don't have to agree with everything he says (e.g. on the subject of GM Foods) to realise that taking cheap fossil fuel out of the system does nasty things to world food production and distribution.
if we'd started seriously conserving energy and investing in alternatives, maybe 30 years ago, then i wouldn't be the pessimist i am now. however, i fear the opportunity has been missed (by quite a margin). and i've yet to read anything that's come close to convincing me otherwise, sorry to say.
we live in a civilisation that's as dependent on oil as the Easter Islanders were on wood. check out what happened to them after they cut down the last tree. don't make great reading, believe me.
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