The End of Fossil Fuels: Part 1. How Long the Twilight?

This country and the world are in for profound change as the petroleum boom winds down. I find that even specialists in the fields that will be most affected have not seriously considered what that transition will be like or how they will handle it. This study is an effort to describe the transition and to explore what lies beyond it.
n Part 1, I will examine the period of decline of petroleum and gas, which will be swift. The petroleum era has been a brief spike that has contributed to a quadrupling of world and U.S. population and rising consumption levels. We are entering an age of overshoot. There may be opportunities for an orderly withdrawal, if we are wise enough to manage the environmental threats and unlearn the faith in growth that has developed in the fossil fuel era. There will be disasters if we do not. Part 2 will look at a much more speculative future beyond fossil fuels and suggest that current populations cannot be supported without them. We may come to see the Industrial Age as the most intense human disturbance of our natural support systems in history. With the judicious employment of the technologies we have learned – and with a bit of luck – we may be able to create a more harmonious balance with the rest of the biosphere, but at much lower population levels and less consumptive habits.

Energy Bulletin