

As shown in the graph here, this is an example of a general



phenomenon. All species suffer population collapse or species extinction if they overshoot and degrade the carrying capacity of their ecology.



In the process, the article moves on to talk about how humanity is in a similar trajectory and how humanity is vitally dependent on oil for it's current way of living.

Source: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3188





The article also talks about my other favourite 'fantasy' which I've always wanted to come true but I know its just pollyannaish to expect it to come true: Singularity. Sure, sure - humanity's acts of intelligence are awesome. What on earth can invent a GPS and the Internet?



A lot of my friends to whom I talk about cite incidents that have happened in the past - the 1973 oil crisis, the 1979 oil crisis, the threat to Ozone depletion, the food shortages post WWII and how humanity had overcome all these issues. One thing I'd just like to point out is that the first two oil issues were temporary unavailability of oil due to nations withholding supplies. Secondly, during all these other issues that needed technological advancement, cheap oil came to the rescue. Now, when oil becomes expensive and unaffordable and at the same time when food production becomes a difficulty due to lack of oil / petrochem and other componded issues of our population's demand, I doubt if the energy needed to 'tackle' this technologically will ever be supplied by the tiny slice of renewable energy sources options at hand.

