There has been times recently where any number of things are unobtainable, but usually it's merely a matter of time. I'm not assuming how long you're talking about but you bring up civilizations so is it safe to assume that you mean in a lifetime? Several? Even without any linked peer reviewed science or studies that I may better educate myself on, I am failing to understand how within a decade, the "blue gold" will be unobtainable for a lifetime or more. I'm interested in the reasoning behind your hypothesis, but minus any extra terrestrial (meteor/asteroid) apocalyptic scenarios, I'm just failing to see how this plays out. Though I am a skeptic and I do understand the fragility of complex systems and social cohesiveness along with the monetary issues involved. Those seem to play out fairly quickly (years? not generations) especially today with the help of all the information technology of course.
If or when these beliefs play out, we will all look like the smartest people around having invested in such things.
I don't have any "beliefs", I have what I can prove, and the odds based on a variety of facts that span many different disciplines, biology, chemistry, history, politics, human psychology, the biosphere, the cryosphere, the atmosphere, feed back loops,energy, ecosystems, carrying capacity, complex systems, the oceans, forests, web of life, planetary systems, and how they all interrelate ..I could literally list hundreds of peer reviewed papers, some I played a tiny role in gathering evidence..And I could list well over a hundred civilizations that are blueprints for where we are now and where we are heading..We survive on Earth because of natural planetary systems, and because of the civilization we were born into and it's current supply systems..Both of those, systems natural and civilizational, have one thing in common, everything is interdependent/interrelated, which means, once a threshold of damage is reached, cascading collapse becomes unavoidable inevitable..It's a fact that governs all complex systems on Earth, the solar system and the universe. Over the past 250 years we have taken hundreds of millions of years of ancient sunlight, in the form of energy dense fossilized fuels, and released this energy into the atmosphere, oceans, and terrestrial environments..This one time energy jackpot also allowed for the doubling several times of the human population..Which in turn has killed several trillion trees, most of the complex life on the planet, and literally has every ecosystem on Earth reeling and in a state of decline..The climate is always changing, it's the rate of change that matters..You can find many peer reviewed papers that estimate that the rate of change now is ten thousand times faster than mammals and most other species can adapt to, over the last several decades and those to come, because it's a fact..We have seen the exact same thing play out, through all of the planets mass extinction events, through many lines of evidence..Although, this is thought to be the fastest rate of change, in all the mass extinction events, faster than the Permian mass extinction event, called "the great dying", when most life on the planet went extinct.. Only the Cretaceous-Paleogene event compares to what we are doing now, when a 6 mile wide mountain slammed into the Earth traveling much faster than any bullet..We have created this energy imbalance that effects all of our once stable planetary systems..It is the equivalent of exploding 8 nuclear bombs every second in the oceans..When I say that we live in this grace period, or lag in the time that it takes for massive complex planetary systems and civilization to break down and collapse, this is the tip of the melting iceberg, of evidence that is available..I've been looking at this evidence for decades, along with many others, it takes decades to absorb it all...We have set in motion many processes that are out of human hands because of the laws of thermodynamics, the laws of nature and the laws that govern complex systems..No one can say when this house of cards falls, we can only take an educated guess, based on the many disciplines I mentioned earlier, and you saw my guess, for what it's worth..But, make no mistake, there is no escape..No green technology can reverse or stop this cascading collapse..Despite what the scientific community says in public..They are cancelled the second that they tell the truth, they lose support in Universities and other professional environments..And the there's our weapons, and if you think we are not going to use them, then you don't understand our history, and the pathology created by an out of touch ruling class and their greed, ego and violence..I would say it's a mathematical certainty..A friend of mine, Professor Nate Hagens has a website and YouTube channel that attempts to illuminate some of these issues..Mostly talks to other scientists, that would probably be a good spot to get your feet wet..I would suggest the book "Overshoot" by Professor William Catton and the book, "Collapse of Complex Societies" by Professor Joseph Tainter..Those three resources will educate you very quickly, and lead to a lifetimes worth of information..
en.wikipedia.org
