Solutions:

In a general way, the ultimate solution is obvious: since underground resources are being depleted (hydrocarbons) or will become inaccessible (metals and minerals) because the those being depleted, the only solution is to move to reliance on above ground resources -- soil, water, forests, oceans, etc. all of which have been seriously damaged. This means radical retrenchment of course. The hope is that science will allow us to rejuvenate the soil, the forests, etc. There is just no other place to go -- simple logic.

But getting there, the transition, that's the toughie. I am tending to think we need two economies: ONE is the global and national market economies; TWO is the the new non-or-local-market economy.

TWO is what needs to grow, and it needs to be where people can go if there is no longer room for them in the ONE economy or they are willing to be pioneers or early adapters. It needs to be an economy based in small dense towns surrounded by agriculture and light industry. It needs to be mostly and as much as possible self-sufficient in basics. Their claim on underground resources need to be, say 5 or 10 pct of that of those in the ONE economy. The gov't(s) need to fund and encourage and protect these TWO economies. They are the future.

The ONE economies cannot and will not disappear overnight. But shrink they must. They are the ones consuming the finite underground resources. It's a tricky matter distinguishing between necessary interim industries and totally parasitic ones (which have been getting the bailouts). The guidance of traditional economists, or at least the more radical of them, will be needed to avoid prematurely crashing the whole system.

Over the next 20-30-40 years the transition needs to be made from ONE to TWO. At that point ONE will be small relative to ONE, and subservient to it, literally. But TWO will be important, because that is the world link, the fiber that hold humanity, science, culture together as one -- otherwise we become disconnected tribes, and we will not have the advantage of science in restoring a badly damaged natural enviornment.

On the one hand, I know this is sounds utterly unreal, even ludicrous. And of course it will not be readily adopted. On the other, what choice is there? What other possible route is there to survival?