The critical question is whether or not there are minimum required amounts of some finite resource.
People only SEE the flows.
They don't relate to the stocks. When the supply starts to trickle out the non-linearity begins, and the whole thing collapses through a tip point. By then it is too late of course because the resource is almost gone. Natural resource economics is not like somebody producing backed beans where there is some relationship between the amount of beans grown annually and the price. Natural resources deal in stores and flows, and the stores that are owned by all generations that have gone and are to come, can be raided for today.