ABSTRACT
The comprehensive concept of peak phenomena is not a new concept. In their seminal work The Limits to Growth, 1 the authors predicted almost 40 years ago that the world could not continue to support universal and unlimited economic growth because resources, including world conventional oil supplies, were finite (Meadows et al. 1974). Donella Meadows and her coauthors (1993) talk of ‘overshoot’. This occurs when human consumption grows beyond the level which the Earth can supply. Paul Cherfuka (2007) defines this overshoot point as having occurred when human consumption exceeds the ability of the Earth and its environment to maintain the demanded supply. At this point, when the Earth cannot supply the level of humanity’s desired consumption, people may increasingly experience various barriers that limit or slow civilization’s ability to continue in its established ways of development to care for the world’s growing population. At the same time, a high level of denial, manipulation and intentional misleading of society from the establishment may reach dangerous levels.
