The big macro story here, perhaps the most underappreciated of them all, is the decline in net energy from our energy extraction efforts.
Energy drives all economic activity. Without energy nothing is possible. It all centered on food energy once upon a time. Food was the limiting factor for the populations of every country, just as it is for every other organism. With more food comes greater populations.
Once we discovered other concentrated forms of energy that could be converted into food, and the food energy problem was effectively solved, then humans could turn their attention to other pursuits – even dedicating entire lives to things besides food production, such as painting and science.
That is, we turned ancient stored sunlight into food and reaped the benefits. Hallelujah!
However, as with all too-good-to-be true-forever stories, this one comes with an ending. And signs that the final act has begun are all around us if we care to see them. Most do not, but you are reading this, which means you are willing to face ‘what is’ rather than ignore reality.
A Little Context
To appreciate where we are in this story, I think a little perspective is essential. Here’s a handy visual:
It is easy but dangerous to take where we are for granted. If we date humanity’s rapid ascendancy from 10,000 years back, then the industrial revolution at ~200 years old represents the skinny green sliver at the end of the long yellow bar in this graphic above.
More importantly, a 22-year-old has seen half of all the oil ever burned in all of history consumed during their short life. Half. Think about that statistic for second.
On our graphic here, 22 years is represented by the thickness of the skinny right-hand border of the green bar. That tiny set of pixels represents the period when 50% of all the oil ever produced has been consumed (!).
I created this visual to scale, beginning with the line thickness, because the point I want to make is that most of the consumption associated with the Industrial Revolution has happened over the past few decades, not over the course of 200 years. We are not working with hundreds and thousands of years of experience on the matter of depletion, but just a few decades.
by trupin 
