I am far more concerned about the ability of nature to absorb the effluent of our growing human population and its infrastructure without becoming less nurturing to humans and other creatures who share our finite planet, than of the availability of resources, such as fossil fuels.
These effluents include global climate change gases (e.g., carbon dioxide) and more "conventional" pollutants, such as oxides of sulfur, nitrogen, heavy metals, and particulates. The former are a long-term problem that is beginning to be felt through strange weather. The latter cause or worsen lung disease, such as asthma. The solution to both problems is to stop burning fossil fuels.
OK, easier stated than done, but not all that difficult when the stakes are so high. With the right combination of conservation, energy efficiency, wind energy, solar energy, and energy storage, I believe it can be done within a decade or two. To really achieve maximum energy efficiency, we need to reconsider how we travel and eat among other aspects of our lives. Instead of traveling in single occupancy vehicles, we should rely more on walking, bicycling, and public transit. (More efficient cars or electric cars will not solve traffic congestion, which wastes time and worsens pollution.) Walkers, bicyclists, and even transit users get more healthy exercise than car drivers, without special trips to the gym. Eating a vegetarian diet consumes far less resources than the usual meat-centered diet because any animal must consume several calories of food for each calorie of meat produced. (This says nothing of the usual and cruel process of raising animals under inhumane conditions and then sending them to slaughter.)
Fossil fuel depletion itself should not concern us, because energy, as a commodity, follows the laws of supply and demand through open markets. Somehow, the large fossil fuel companies find more and more destructive ways, and go to literally the ends of the earth, to mine and drill for as much energy as the market demands. These destructive ways include mountain-top coal mining, deep sea oil drilling, horizontal drilling, fracking, and tar-sands mining. The private interests that bring us this relatively cheap energy don't bear the true cost of these practices nor do they pay the true costs of local toxic pollution or climate-change pollution and neither do we as consumers. (Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is us" -- so true.) On the positive side, higher prices will accelerate growth in clean renewable sources such as solar and wind energy and they will encourage energy conservaton and discourage energy waste.
We can begin to address this inequity by slowing or stopping these harmful practices and by imposing a true cost of toxic emissions and climate-change pollution now; I hope we have the political will to do so. The Sierra Club and other great organizations around the world are working to that end. Please join with us.
In future postings, I plan to highlight a path toward a cleaner sustainable future.