The collapse, as predicted by some sensationalists, won’t come precisely because we are aware of it: while most of Washington seems to be in denial about climate change, the U.S. military has been aware of it for more than two decades now and as drawn up plenty of plans and, in many cases, already implemented ways to protect its bases globally from the impact of rising sea-levels or harsher climate.

While politicians might bicker, companies prepare, as can be seen by the rising reserve assets of reinsurance companies for disasters. After the break-down of many supply-chains after the Fukushima-incident, many companies have reduced their just-in-time productions and have started to keep stockpiles, again.

The energy, space and time required for the bare essentials for human survival has never been as low as today: agricultural production, textile automation and construction are ridiculously cheap if you are happy with few frills. Most of our energy and resources are wasted on vanity projects like cars we hardly use, gadget we never use and electronics we replace every two years. We can easily cut 75% of global production of those with no ill effects to our survival.

humanity has always sought cheap energy: the fact that Greece and Italy have hardly any natural forest left is a prime example: wood was an abundant fuel, and was used until exhausted. Slavery, indentured servitude and beast of burden all provided the energy required to do the work that could conceivably be done: since building a cathedral or large bridge was a project everyone understood to take decades and centuries, energy was never really a limiting factor.

Since the industrial revolution, we have had an abundance of energy, and have to invent ways to use or waste it. We have never run out of energy, but the price has of course fluctuated periodically, due to supply/demand imbalances. Many times in modern history it looked like oil might run out, but then new deposits were discovered or new technologies invented to use what could not be used before of the old wells.

Today, solar power alone (like the Noor I array in Morocco) could supply all our needs indefinitely. Offshore wind-turbines can deliver some more. And in Germany, the Wendelstein 7-X Stellarator will tell us (probably this year) if a torus-based fusion reactor is commercially viable. Energy abundance is here.

And with endless energy comes endless water, since desalination is mostly a question of energy.

History is full of times when technology has created abundance: aluminium used to be so rare and hard to make that only Emperor Napoleon alone would have a set of cutlery to show off his wealth and power. Today, we throw it way without a second thought.

Most nations believed that Germany would quickly lose WWI because England cut off its supply of saltpeter and with it its resource for making gunpowder. But using the new Haber-Bosch-process, Germany could bind the required material literally out of thin air. Making steel has become so cheap that China is basically giving it away, just to keep its factories running, etc. etc.

Automation and miniaturization reduce the production costs and material requirements. Electronics are not only several magnitudes more powerful than only a few decades ago, they are lighter, cheaper and use less material.

The next step is additive production, as such 3d-printers: especially expensive materials like those used body replacements (joints, teeth etc.) or aviation and aerospace (titanium) can be build much cheaper by adding only what is required instead of drilling it out of a bigger block of material.

We also see a move away from physical goods to virtual ones: we no longer buy boxes of games, DVDs and other entertainments: we use one copy of a digital version with the production cost of copying of zero. Once 3D-goggles start to work properly, we might see a decline in long-distance travel.

When it comes to progress, there is no prisoner’s dilemma: the person who think he has to use up the scarce resources now lest his compatriot does so before him only increases the pressure to find a cheap alternative, making it more likely that a new, better source will be found: the greedy prisoner is left with outdated tech.