Is this the beginning of the end?

I read an article that suggested that $12 per gallon gasoline was an inevitability. If this is true then the world as we know it could be coming to an end.
No amount of tax rebates and political pandering would save the people from this. We depend on gasoline to do everything in our daily lives. Our cities are set up for driving. Grocery stores, pharmacies, doctors offices, these things are not just along main st. Of course, all of our jobs aren't along main street either. I drive 26 miles one way to work. Most people I know drive 10 plus miles to make their living. I Johnson County where I live, its not feasible for me to hope on the "JO" and get to Vivian Rd north of the river in a timely fashion and then get home. Just not happening. Maybe, if fuel was $12 per gallon it would.
cAt that price I wouldn't have a job. People would not be doing a home loan. They couldn't have a home loan because they wouldn't have a job either. People that work for the Airlines, the automotive industry, and even the government would be out of work. The retailers wouldn't be open because the people wouldn't be able to afford shop there. Farmers would lose crops because they wouldn't be able to sell them at the market. The banks would begin the foreclose on every property. Banks would then begin to fold themselves. The country and the whole industrialized world would come crashing down. War and tribal type fighting would take over the parts of the world. Governments would crumble. The great depression would seem like a mild recession.
I might be a little over board on this but, the world moves to the tune of oil and gas. No one would win in this.
I did read that governments, India, China, the OPEC countries, all subsidize gasoline. People in Venezuela pay something between 12 and 25 cents a gallon. The government pays the rest of the cost. These governments will not be able to afford this. The oil prices now are almost becoming a drag on their economies.
If McCain is able to talk the rest of the government into suspending the federal tax of gasoline the prices will only go up. The government will just lose money even faster. The new excuse this week for the oil prices is that we are running out.
The media and the speculators are driving up the prices. By giving these speculators a pass and not reporting the truth about why the oil prices are they way they are, they are just as guilty as the people driving the prices up. Oil is not running out. Our government has made it too expensive and difficult to drill for oil. They have also made it too expensive and difficult to build new refineries.
Too many people like to complain and not do anything about the oil prices, government, their favorite TV show being cancelled. There isn't a quick fix to this problem. We as a people need to rise up above our complacency and know that we are not causing global warming. We legislated ourselves into this problem.
Just because it sounds compassionate to say that we are destroying the planet and we need to save the world from our very small carbon emissions, doesn't mean that by doing this it is OK to destroy our society and kill people by starvation and disease.