Just about anyone who's filled up at the pumps in the past few days knows gas prices are at record highs.

In most Canadian cities, retail gas prices topped $1.10 per litre last week. The increasingly high cost of filling up is no surprise considering that on Wednesday crude oil hit a trading record and topped the US$112 mark.

While many drivers may be concerned about the short-term drain that gas prices are having on their wallets, author and activist James Howard Kunstler says the bigger problems associated with oil and gas are profound, long-range, and irreversible.

Kunstler believes that what drivers are witnessing now is only a glimpse into what the future holds for society as a whole -- a future that will force communities around the world to restructure the way they're organized.

Kunstler has outlined his vision of the future in his latest novel, "World Made by Hand," which draws on themes he's established in his non-fiction works such as "The Long Emergency." He believes the impending oil shortage will affect not only transportation, but also agriculture and trade.

"We're going to have to live a lot more locally. We will have to produce food a lot more locally. Agriculture will return to become much closer to the center of our economic life," he said.

Described by some as a "prophet of doom," Kunstler told CTV.ca he's merely describing a process that is already underway.

Kunstler believes that the future holds a world without easy transportation made available by the abundance of cars. Cities surrounded by suburban hubs will have come and gone. Countries and people will squabble and fight for what limited resources remain. Huge agribusinesses will no longer be the main suppliers of food. Instead, people worldwide will have to rely again on local farmers for limited supplies.

There will be new political and social realities. Politics will become more local in scope and new economic classes will take shape, perhaps creating conflicts with those advantaged by the current class system.

"There's an assumption that the economic relationships that have occurred in the past decades in the cheap oil era will continue. The world is not flat. It is very round and will become even more round. We'll be compelled to live more locally whether we like it or not," he said.

Kunstler told CTV.ca that roughly half of the oil the earth once held still remains. But its quality is not as good as that of oil retrieved in the past. It is also more difficult and expensive to bring to the surface, and as it becomes more and more rare, it will create new conflicts and geopolitical realities.

As a major producer, Canada won't be able to stay on the sidelines.

"You can't overestimate the degree of desperation that the U.S. may be to subject to .... At some point the Monroe Doctrine will come in," he said. The 19th century doctrine had made the Western Hemisphere the purview of the Americans -- a not-so-subtle warning to European powers not to meddle in the economic and political interests of the U.S.

Kunstler believes the mentality behind the doctrine will be applied to nations such as Canada; as energy resources decline, the U.S. will increasingly determine Canadian energy policies.

He says the public needs to inform itself of the political, economic, and social crises that may occur.

This is possibly an inflection point for revolution. There could be a lot of agitation locally about who has control of land ... we're in for political mischief," he said.

"You can see (these problems) coming from a million miles away but there's no discussion of that at all in the media or in politics."