Crude Ideas - from Fast Company

From the Editor of Fast Company: Crude Ideas
This post is interesting as it seems as if the concept of the end of cheap oil is finally becoming mainstream as oil hovers around $90/bb. Finally the people who have been warning us about peak oil for decades are being seen as the true prophets that they are.
Now the question is - what are we going to do about it? Are we going to transfer a lot of corn production to ethanol, fueling rising food prices, so that we can drive an ethanol-guzzling big SUV? Or are we going to look to reduce our consumptioon of energy, as well as transferring the generation of that energy away from the non-renewable, carbon-based sources and into "clean" generation, like wind, wave, solar?
I don't think that the shift to alternative fuel will make any sense without a serious reconsideration of the way we use power. Architecture needs to be more suited to the climates in which the buildings are situated. Remember the tropical architecture in Trinidad in colonial days? Houses were built with thick walls, verandas, jalosie windows that blocked sun but encouraged breeze. Nowadays, we build block houses that block breeze with lots of glass walls that trap adn intensify heat and we counter this with freezing cold air conditioning.
This doesn't make sense in an era when fuel costs are more expensive,, does it?