Umair, you need to read two books: first is "The Lantern Bearers" by Rosemary Sutcliffe. It's a historical novel about the end of Rome in Britain and it's brilliant.

The second is "Why the West Rules for Now" by Ian Morris. Don't worry about the text so much. Look at the graphs. (I know you're going to like them.)

Basically what they say is that humans expand in numbers and use of energy until they hit a barrier which is usually environmental or technical. Environmental could be famines or droughts or floods. Technical is lacking the things you need to take the next step. For instance, one of the reasons why Ancient Rome didn't move to steam power is that metallurgy wasn't ready yet because blast furnaces hadn't been invented.

So Rome eventually fell due to plague, famine, insane politics. It never got past the steam barrier.

In the West, we did get past the steam barrier and the petrochemical barrier. We've gone higher than any culture before - but now we're looking at the barrier of CO2 - there isn't any more room for it in the atmosphere. So we have to change - and there are the parasitical fossil fuel companies doing their best to stop us.

So for us the line on the graph will flatten out and then drop, first slowly, then quickly. Or it will flatten for a bit and then go upwards again.

I wonder which it will be?