Nature’s resources are finite, especially non-renewable energies, a fact many responsible politicians and businesspeople don’t seem to realize. The author asks if it will be possible to maintain the industrial advances that began some 200 years ago with the exploitation of coal and, later on, oil, natural gas and uranium. Energy reduction will begin with oil, a fact that will imply a transport crisis, a halt in globalised production and, ultimately, a food crisis (in developed countries as well!). Climate change, irreversible according to the trends that have been analysed, will be one more difficulty added to the necessary readjustments.