The article is weak. The article is useless, at least in the context of oil.
You don’t have to run out of oil to have billions of people die. You just have to run short. There will almost certainly always be oil underground. Maybe a gallon left in this field maybe a gallon left in another field. Both fields a couple of miles down. More likely three miles down. No one is going to spend $5 million to drill a well to tap a gallon of oil. So we didn’t run out. It’s still there. But we will never get that gallon.
Population grows consumption grows. Global oil consumption Rising about 1% a year, and that’s even with covid. So you need to produce oil at a higher rate than you did when the population of the planet was smaller. That starts to shrink that 47 years in the article. But as I just pointed out that 47 years doesn’t matter because that’s time to zero. Death occurs long before 0. Food travels on trucks and when the truck cannot get fuel the food doesn’t get to your mouth. That’s how oil scarcity kills billions.
Not zero oil. Scarce oil. Insufficient oil.
Excellent characterization! The article is long-winded, too. Your further observations "hit the mark."
Regards,
For several hundred years, Malthusians have predicted disaster for the human race based on overpopulation causing shortages of coal, timber, food, etc. The late great economist Julian Simon showed how time after time, a free market economy will adapt to and overcome any shortage. As the price of a commodity increases, human ingenuity figures out how to increase production of the commodity or introduce acceptable substitutes. It’s only in socialist/communist/managed economies do shortages actually kill people.