In his 2014 report to the Club of Rome ▻http://www.clubofrome.org/?p=7169, Prof Bardi takes a long-term view of the prospects for humanity, noting that the many technological achievements of industrial societies mean there is still a chance now to ensure the survival and prosperity of a future post-industrial civilization:
“It is not easy to imagine the details of the society that will emerge on an Earth stripped of its mineral ores but still maintaining a high technological level. We can say, however, that most of the crucial technologies for our society can function without rare minerals or with very small amounts of them, although with modifications and at lower efficiency.”
Although expensive and environmentally intrusive industrial structures “like highways and plane travel” would become obsolete, technologies like “the Internet, computers, robotics, long-range communications, public transportation, comfortable homes, food security, and more” could remain attainable with the right approach - even if societies undergo disastrous crises in the short-run.
Bardi is surprisingly matter-of-fact about the import of his study. “I am not a doomster,” he told me. “Unfortunately, depletion is a fact of life, not unlike death and taxes. We cannot ignore depletion - just like it is not a good idea to ignore death and taxes…
” If we insist in investing most of what remains for fossil fuels; then we are truly doomed. Yet I think that we still have time to manage the transition. To counter depletion, we must invest a substantial amount of the remaining resources in renewable energy and efficient recycling #technologies - things which are not subjected to depletion. And we need to do that before is too late, that is before the energy return on investment of fossil fuels has declined so much that we have nothing left to invest ."