My guess is that we'll have to have 5-7 consecutive years of declining year over year production before the public broadly accepts the peak oil concept. The naysayers have too much ammunition - recessions will be able to mask it, oil companies can be blamed for anything, politicians from oil exporting countries can be blamed for anything, and the opaque nature and language of economics can be used to convince the public of concepts that they have no way to verify. I think the pervasive belief in conspiracy theories surrounding oil demonstrates that the public doesn't have the tools it needs to understand what is going on (with, admittedly, a fair amount of that being willful ignorance).

you are the media you consume.