I like to think of oil as a kind of placenta, the placenta of Mother Earth.
It was needed to get us, humanity, the baby species, from early formation, to a stage where we are capable of surviving from the energy of the greater environment, beyond our Mother, independently of the resources of our mother.
The energy which exists outside our mother, which created everything in the placenta, is the sun.
That is what we now need to plug into, as a united species, otherwise we perish like a single human newborn baby that failed to take the first breath of air, after the umbilical cord was severed.
On the timing of severing the umbilical cord (when we shut down all fossil fueled power supplies), it is important to do asap, to avoid potentially long lasting unnecessary damage to our species, since shortages experienced by all organs takes greatest toll on the weakest, yet all are needed, damage to some is damage to all.
We need this species to be born intact, the sooner the better, I would say.