In 1970, Paul Ehrlich said this...

I'm scared. I have a 14 year old daughter whom I love very much. I know a lot of young people, and their world is being destroyed. My world is being destroyed. I'm 37 and I'd kind of like to live to be 67 in a reasonably pleasant world, and not die in some kind of holocaust in the next decade.

And so he did. But while doing so, back in 1974 he said this...

There are, indeed, "hard times a-coming." Even if there is no final boom and bust, the economic world of the near future will be a very different place from that of today...

The vast diversity of businesses that manufacture and distribute the goods of our "cowboy" economy will have largely disappeared.

Most of the Japanese firms that today shower us with electronic gadgets will have gone defunct as Japan's situation deteriorates, and the higher costs of necessities will have so reduced demand for television sets, radios, tape decks, and the like that few new firms will have entered the market.

Similarly, a wide array of non-essentials, from convenience foods to recreational vehicles, will have largely vanished...

Probably before 1985, a general recognition of the changed economic status of the nation will lead to a stock-market collapse even more severe than the one that preceded the onset of the depression of the 1930s....it is very likely that before the end of the century the stock market, as we know it, will disappear as a factor in the lives of individuals...

The most unnecessary, wasteful, and antisocial activities-such as the packaging and bottling industries, some kinds of weapons, aircraft, cheap plastic products, etc.-are likely to be eliminated either in a conventional depression or the real energy crunch.

In 1980, Jeremy Rifkin said this...

Because of escalating energy and resource costs, industry will reverse its historical trend and convert back from energy- and capital-intensive production modes to labor-intensive ones...

Agriculture, which will no longer be able to continue its mechanized farming techniques, will also become far more labor intensive...

The production that does continue should take place within certain guidelines in keeping with the low-entropy paradigm...Of course, adhering to these guidelines will necessarily mean that certain items will become impossible to produce.

A Boeing 747, for instance, simply cannot be manufactured by a small company employing several hundred individuals...if it cannot be made locally by the community...then it is most likely unnecessary that it be produced at all.

My mom once knit me an MRI machine. But it didn't work so good...

Many industries will not be able to withstand the transition to a low energy flow. Unable to adapt to the new economic environment, the automotive, aerospace, petrochemical, and other industries will slide into extinction.

In 2005, James Kunstler said this...

America today has a railroad system that the Bulgarians would be ashamed of...if we don't refurbish our rail system, then there may be no long-range travel or transport of goods at all a few decades from now. The commercial aviation industry, already on its knees financially, is likely to vanish.

And predicted the following tribulations...

famine; war; epidemics of deadly disease; governments releasing viruses into their own populations to cull the weak...a return to local, even pre-industrial, economies; and...Asian pirates plundering California...

William Stanton agreed with him...

...the vast majority of the general public assumes that what the future holds is “more of the same”. They argue...that the expertise inherited by post-fossil-fuel scientists and engineers will allow a smooth transition into a new kind of energy-rich world...

Such a view is untenable...almost all materials essential to modern civilization will be orders of magnitude more costly, and scarce, when they have to be produced using renewable energy...

In 2150, for example, a wind turbine constructed of steel, concrete and plastic may not be able to generate, during its lifetime, as much renewable energy as would have been used up in creating it...

Vast engineering projects such as constructing the first Airbus A380 airliner, using only renewable energy from start to finish, would be unthinkable (to say nothing of flying the plane without oil!).

Nobody likes airplanes anymore. But don't abandon hope just yet.

It's now possible to convert coal into jet fuel. Now, how about that...

A synthetic jet fuel comparable to Jet A or military JP 8, but derived from at least 50% bituminous coal, has successfully powered a helicopter jet engine, according to a Penn State fuel scientist.

The fuel has superior resistance to decomposition at high temperature, and it designed to be stable at 480°C or 900°F (hence the designation JP-900). Penn State originally began the research in the search for a very thermally stable fuel for the next generation of high-performance aircraft...

"Because the fuel is 50% derived from coal, it could reduce our use of imported petroleum for this purpose by half. We have shown in tests that the mix can go to at least 75% coal."

—Harold Schobert, Penn State professor of fuel science and director of the Energy Institute

The process can be carried out in existing refineries with some retrofitting and small amounts of the leftover components will feed into various portions of the petroleum stream. The lighter portions will go to the pool of chemicals that make gasoline and the heavier ones go to the diesel or fuel oil streams.

Combustion tests showed that JP 900 meets or exceeds almost all specification for JP8 and Jet A...

The coal-based fuel is lower in aromatics—such compounds as benzene and toluene—than conventional jet fuels and is almost sulfur free. From an energy point of view, JP 900 produces almost exactly the same BTU as JP8.

Not only does JP 900 meet most of the specification for JP8, but it also has the high flash point required of JP5, naval jet fuel and the thermal stability of JP 7, a high performance fuel.

We're saved! If there's one thing this country has got plenty of, it's coal. Boy, are those Asian pirates going to be surprised.

Death from above! Unleash the Raptors!