Tags: Peak oil, Global energy, Exponential growth, Energy shortages, Economic crisis, Hubbert’s Peak principle

The 1970s saw the first signs of peak oil and its consequences in the decades ahead. It became clear that U.S. oil production had peaked in 1970, just like the oil geologist Marion King Hubbert had forecast 14 years before, and that world oil production would peak around the turn of the century. The Club of Rome warned in 1972 in its report “The Limits to Growth”, that we could not continue depleting the world’s natural resources. The two oil crises of 1973 and 1979 showed us what the consequences were of just a slight and temporary oil shortage. President Jimmy Carter was fully aware and wanted to act boldly. His “Address to the Nation on Energy” in 1977 was a courageous wake-up call, but as we know by now, his warnings were rejected. Alternative technologies of renewable energy production, which should have been developed vigorously to make a timely energy transition, continued their underdeveloped and semi‐dormant existence.

Peak oil and the fate of humanity.pdf