For those interested in the wider background of the historical record of resource overreach and depletion, ASPO Canada is posting herewith two essays. ASPO Canada chairman Ed Schreyer traces the historical pattern of resource use, intermittent overuse and abuse that destroyed the sustainability of entire regions throughout antiquity and during the past 500 years of post Medieval Europe. Now as globalism is replacing regional structures, the prospect of resource overuse and depletion is shifting from a local or regional inconvenience requiring moving a few miles (or a few thousand miles across a sea or continent) to a future where since the problem is global, there is no further place to move to. Then, too, there is now the problem of environmental impact on a worldwide scale. So the challenge now is to act in time to give new technology of renewable energy and new attitudes of conservation—a chance to make the changes before it is too late.

The Politics Of Energy and the Environment (PDF)

Energy Resource Use and Misuse in North America (PDF)