You are optimistic in saying the world won't stop because of the fuel prices.
There are plenty of doom mongers with limited imagination but the fact is we won't all die because of a single finite resource such as oil becomming expensive.
And saying we will find something to replace it, this is misunderstanding 2 things: the human genius in finding good ideas, and our economy based on free fuel available for us.
No idea, no genius can find an alternative to what is free an available.
Free and available fuel? There was an aircraft designed not too long ago which flew for 24 hours utilising only solar power, which arguably is free. The point is that any new technology could be completely new. The fact no one has yet come up with an easy alternative to oil does not mean there isn't one, but may well be an indication that people were happy to be dependent on oil, or profit from it.
The transition may be painful and what comes next may not resemble what came before but there will be something. There are already organisations working on alternatives, and tomorrow someone could come up with something which makes the difference.
As oil effects all industry you can bet there will be great incentive for innovative thinkers to come together to come up with an alternative.
Whether young people who want to be pilots are willing to take a chance on an uncertain future is quite probably purely situational. If you need to take out a loan, and pay to fly, your career may not last very long, but I think the people to whom this applies know that already. For everyone else they already have a back-up plan.