No Physical Basis for Recovery

Cyril Lagel

[Update: This post used to be about non-renewable natural resource scarcity, but things didn't go as planned. Now it's mostly about turning the heads on a small boat into a steam room/sauna, and that's just fine. See the comments for details.]

[This is a guest post from Chris, who has been looking into nonrenewable resource depletion for some time now. His conclusion is that, even if oil weren't the immediate problem, we'd still be "running out of planet" for many commodities without which an industrial civilization will collapse.]

The prevailing perception among the American public is that the hard times we are currently experiencing are temporary, that their leaders are implementing the proper mix of economic and political fixes, and that life will be back to normal soon. While this perception is entirely understandable given their historical experience, it is also entirely wrong. There will be no recovery this time.

[The ungrateful author didn't like my edits (his manuscript, as submitted, was a bit woolly) so I am taking down the text and leaving the graphics, which tell the story just fine even without the text. For more on this topic, read Richard Heinberg's Peak Everything.]

20th Century US Societal Well-being

20th Century US NNR Utilization

Peak US NNR Utilization

Peak US Societal Well-being