[magic_smoke_ee]

He was successful at marketing extreme FUD books in the late 60's and early 70's, kind of reminds me of "the impending catastrophe" doomer like Thom Hartmann. Heck, even Jim Morrison had an opinion on the subject.

The reality (WRT to bulk metals) is that we get some "free passes" due to mining technological advancements, and that increased scarcity -> increased costs -> curtails wastes, encourages recycling, and drives substitutes.

More generally, peak production isn't a problem itself, per se. There is concern when there are risks for sudden shocks or collapse. If we suddenly ran out of phosphorous, that would be bad.

I think there is still a lot of waste that could be captured with cleverer engineering, especially ag runoff, in industrial process, and failure to capture material going into landfills. Perhaps in 100 years, we will be mining old landfills for rare earth metals.