Quote Originally Posted by Surferbeetle View Post

'Brief' local shortages, surely, 'sustained' system-wide shortages, surely not...humans are way too adaptable...when we ran out of caves, we built....

Ask yourself, who is it that definitively knows where the brain-pan currently resides that will help our species to leap today's perceived hurdles? Perhaps that answer should guide our actions in the world...
I think a key matter will be how a brief global shortage of a central element of our modern society, like petroleum will influence the global economy. Today it's slice of the costs in manufacturing most goods and transporting them over the sea is pretty small. A sustained high price should have a ripple effect, allowing for the extraction of so far too costly sources of fossil fuels, make alternative energetic sources more attractive and shift demand away from uses such as heating. The big question is just how smoothly and quickly such adaptions can happen and how far the finite ressourcs can be streched.