It’s the end of the world as we know it, and Republican lawmaker Mike Beard feels fine.

Exxon basically heralded the arrival of “peak oil” at its annual fiscal report on Tuesday, saying it can no longer find as much new oil in the ground as it refines above ground. The very same week, Minnesota Republican lawmaker Mike Beard insists that we should burn fossil fuels freely, because God will provide infinite natural resources, forever.

Announcing their annual fiscal report, Exxon revealed that for every 100 barrels of oil it pumps above ground, it can now only find 95 to replenish the supply below ground. The Wall Street Journal writes, “It’s a conundrum shared by most of the other large Western oil-producing companies, which are finding most accessible oil fields were tapped long ago, while promising new regions are proving technologically and politically challenging.”

This, essentially, is “peak oil”—the hypothetical tipping point long feared by scientists and energy realists when the world’s finite oil supplies are depleted to the point where oil companies have to start working harder and harder for diminishing returns. Diminishing supply at higher cost, paired with ever-growing global demand, creates a massive, irreversible energy crisis. Hence, all the talk about “renewable energy” alternatives.

But one man who’s not buying it is Republican Minnesota state rep Mike Beard. “We are not going to run out of anything,” Beard recently said, arguing to resume coal mining in Minnesota. “God is not capricious. He’s given us a creation that is dynamically stable.”

The news comes on the heels of last week’s Wikileaks cable detailing how the ex-president of Saudi Arabia’s oil monopoly—the single biggest oil producer in the world—told the U.S. Saudi Arabia had overstated its oil reserve supply by as much as 40%, and predicted “peak oil” would come as soon as 2012.

Part of the “peak oil” energy crisis scenario is that energy companies will scramble to cull other natural resources like gas to make up for the dwindling oil supply, but that these efforts won’t stave off crisis-making price shocks, since other resources simply aren’t as cost-efficient. As the WSJ writes, “The shift toward gas is troubling some investors, because gas sells for less than the equivalent amount of oil.”

And there is no doubt—the shift from oil and toward gas has started. “Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s chief executive said last month the European company will produce more gas than oil next year for the first time in its 104-year history,” says the Journal.

Yesterday Bernie Madoff insisted the banks knew about his fraud, but exhibited “willful blindness” in order to keep doing business with him. Rep. Mike Beard told MinnPost “It is the height of hubris to think we could [destroy the earth].” In light of the real, hard evidence from oil companies like Exxon who say the earth is running out of easy-access oil, to insist that “we are not going to run out of anything” is the height of “willful blindness.”

If the crisis the financial industry invoked through it’s “willful blindness” is any indication, we should all be extremely concerned about the blindness of lawmakers like Beard. Damage to the environment, unlike financial markets, is relatively irreversible, and can’t be manipulated for a quick fix when crisis hits. When the shit hits the fan, it’s going to stick.