ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the peak oil problem in detail, as it makes for a good case study of resource depletion, including uncertainties associated with the timing of peak resource production. This will also serve as an entry point for a discussion of global climate change, for which burning of fossil fuels like oil is the primary cause. The chapter discusses nonrenewable mineral resources and the problems posed by their finite supplies. Peak oil is exactly the type of resource shortage predicted by the original Limits to Growth study. Beginning in 2008 the United States reversed a long-term trend of declining oil production by developing new methods of horizontal drilling. The environmental consequences of peak oil and the costs of the oil dependence are well illustrated by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry.
