Industrial society was able to grow as rapidly as it did in part because of the ready availability of high-grade mineral resources including fuels. As time passed and demands rose, the grades of ores gradually decreased. It is clear that as material desires and needs increase in the future, as industrialization spreads and the population of the earth increases still further, we will be confronted by an accelerating diminution of needed substances. The time must inevitably come when ores as such no longer exist and industrial civilization will feed on the leanest of earth substances-the rocks which make up the surface of our planet, the waters of the seas, the gases of the atmosphere, and sunlight. The technology required to carry out processing will become increasingly complex. Nevertheless, as long as the technology is functioning smoothly, industrial civilization can continue to thrive. But should industrial civilization perish, it is difficult to see how it can get started again.
The ancient Romans were extraordinary engineers and organizers. From a purely technological point of view they came close to achieving the maximum of what could be accomplished technologically in the absence of the steam engine. Thev brought food and raw materials and manufactured goods over great distances from most parts of the then-known world, and this enabled them to support a population of about 1.2 million persons in the city of Rome itself and some 14 million on the Italian peninsula. Many of their buildings still stand and some of their roads and aqueducts are still in use.
In spite of the technological and organizational achievements of the Romans, the empire disintegrated—because of internal and external political and economic pressure, and because of heavy dependence upon imports of food and raw materials. Importation of food was essential, yet the Roman granaries of Spain and Africa were eventually reduced to exhaustion, apparently by a combination of climatic change and land mismanagement. Inadequate food supplies combined with pestilence and war to accelerate the process of decay. As time passed, the Eternal City was cannibalized for its resources. It is essential for us to realize that this could happen again. We are not more exceptional than the Romans were.
Harrison Brown, The Human Future Revisited
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I believe that it is very difficult to know who we are until we understand where and when we are.
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Over time, an emerging awareness of the fact that the Hydrocarbon Age is a fleeting epoch in history has germinated. It has also become increasingly apparent that the human species is at a critical historical juncture: we are near the mid-point in drawdown of oil and natural gas reserves. We are repeating a process that has eventuated previously at other times, places, and scales: Drawdown » Overshoot Collapse.
The Roman Empire and the Maori of New Zealand can be regarded as historical precedents for the pending dilemma that our human population may be forced to endure on a global scale. The Romans embarked on an imperial venture of plundering other societies, but eventually the Roman Empire degenerated into tyranny and mayhem. The Maori discovered a bountiful ecology in New Zealand, yet eventually were forced to resort to defending themselves in pas.
As a consequence of an unrelenting drawdown of fossil fuels, our species faces the daunting prospect of a transition from the overshoot phase of Drawdown » Overshoot » Collapse toward collapse. The character of such a transition is abstractly portrayed below in the graphic representation of H.T. Odum's population simulation (and Joseph Tainter's diminishing returns curve). Alternatively, the panels Ecclesia's Paradise and Hell from Hieronymous Bosch's triptych Garden of Earth Delight suggest a more direct, visceral portrayal of a pending transition from overshoot to collapse.
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