Early in the twenty-first century, a quiet crisis is unfolding beneath the surface of global economics. While governments and corporations project confidence in humanity’s future, geologists and energy experts are reaching a troubling consensus: the world’s oil reserves are depleting far faster than new discoveries can replenish them, and wars in the Middle East are not helping. Pablo Rafael Gonzalez’s Running Out cuts through the comfortable myths surrounding natural resource availability to examine a fundamental shift in economic reality.

This book challenges the traditional economic paradigm that has dominated since Adam Smith. For centuries, economists assumed capital was the scarce factor limiting production. But as the twenty-first century was dawning, even before the 2026 war on Iran, that assumption was crumbling. Natural resources—particularly water and conventional oil—have become the true constraint on human civilization. Gonzalez presents rigorous statistical evidence from the 1940s through 2000s demonstrating that oil production has consistently outpaced the discovery of new reserves, a trend with no historical parallel. Global fuel shortages loom.

The analysis extends far beyond petroleum. Gonzalez documents the extinction of species at alarming rates, the deforestation of critical ecosystems, the pollution of water sources, and the agricultural pressures threatening food security. He examines how these interconnected crises affect different regions: the Himalayan glaciers that feed Asia’s major rivers, the shrinking Caroni River threatening Venezuela’s hydroelectric capacity, and the Middle Eastern water conflicts already reshaping geopolitics.

The book systematically forecasts global oil demand through 2020, showing projected consumption increases of 53 percent. It traces the decline of major oil-producing nations, from the United States’ shift from exporter to importer, to the inevitable peak production moments approaching in the North Sea, Mexico, and Russia. Gonzalez applies King Hubbert’s geologically-grounded prediction methods to demonstrate when various regions will exhaust their reserves.

Rather than offering false optimism, Running Out presents the genuine choices facing humanity: rational conservation or continued reckless consumption. It examines whether alternative energy sources can realistically replace petroleum, analyzes the political and military consequences of resource scarcity, and questions whether full global employment remains achievable within ecological limits.

This is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the hidden economic forces reshaping our world—from policymakers and investors to concerned citizens wondering why mainstream media rarely discusses these critical trends. Gonzalez’s work provides the statistical foundation and historical context necessary to comprehend the resource crisis defining our era.

Synopsis

A shocking scarcity of natural resources is about to hit the whole world, and the crisis is being accelerated by mankind's heedless overexploitation and pollution of what's left. This is an unprecedented and mind-boggling challenge for humanity. It also signals a change of the economic paradigm, the lens through which economic experts view the world. Pablo Rafael Gonzalez documents the dire state of the whole earth's reserves of oil, food and water in 150 tables and graphs. Gonzalez, a political analyst, has advised Venezuela's President and Congress for 25 years on energy and resource issues. In this book he convincingly demonstrates that we are well on the way to exhausting both renewable and nonrenewable natural resources, even if we are in denial about it. Capital, economists like to say, is the scarce factor of production; but starting in this century, it's the scarcity of natural resources that will limit growth. It's time we recognized that fact and dealt with it.

Until now, it has been relatively easy to keep on expanding production as mankind conquered the globe, continually gaining access to rich "new" lands; and rapid population growth has meant there were generally enough hands to do the work. That halcyon era is coming to an end, and economists will have to shift their focus from problems of distribution to problems of resources. The evidence presented in these pages, drawn largely from World Bank and UN reports, adds up to an urgent plea that governments and other policy-makers abandon some traditional economic ideas and invent radically new approaches in order to shape responsible policies for the future. * Pablo Rafael Gonzalez was founder (1992) and Director of the Political Analysis Office of the Venezuela Senate and served as Information Director of the Central Office of Coordination and Planning of the Republic Presidency. As a researcher with a wide experience in the political sciences, economy and philosophy, his principal interest has been in themes as employment and economic growth, external debt, globalization, energy and natural resources.

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