One of the things that I think most people are totally unaware of is that modernity as we know it today (technology, cars, airplanes, electricity) is destined to have a short life-time. The problem is the amount of energy that is required per capita to provide for our lifestyle is unsustainable.
The following links are from the blog of Professor Tom Murphy at https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/. On the right of the main page, near the middle, is a list of the most popular posts, most of which deal with the energy issue. Also on the main page, you will see a "Guide to Posts" in the header near the top that briefly describes the topic of all posts, where you can select an article you are interested in. I highly recommend this blog. It is huge, and I have read most of it over the years. The articles that I recommend to understand the issue are shown below, in chronological order. If you ignore everything else, then read only these articles, and the book at mentioned at the end of this page (How the World Really Works).
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/can-economic-growth-last
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/07/limits-to-economic-growth
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/12/finite-feeding-frenzy
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2023/08/ecological-cliff-edge
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2023/09/can-modernity-last
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/05/watching-population-bomb
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/08/mm-18-what-can-i-do/
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/10/evidence-please
The following links are from a blog by Gail Tverberg at https://ourfiniteworld.com/. She is a researcher focused on figuring out how energy limits and the economy are really interconnected, and what this means for our future. Her background is as a casualty actuary, working in insurance forecasting. I have not kept up with this blog, but the following, which I read many years ago, stand out for me. The first one is Admiral Rickover's speech, given in 1957. The second link is to a collection of articles I read many years ago regarding the peak oil crisis. The third link is a list of articles submitted by Gail Tverberg to the site https://oilprice.com in reverse chronological order. The fourth link is to an article published by Gail to the same site in 2023. I have not read her most recent articles, but a glance at her home page reveals she is still actively posting about energy/oil issues and the economy. You can probably skip the fifth link, which is a collection of Gail's predictions from 2014-2017. Do read Admiral Rickover's speech.
Predicting Peak Oil (Admiral Rickover Speech)
List of Articles by Gail Tverberg
A Collection of Archived Articles by Gail Tverberg
The following is a fairly technical paper, most of which you can skip if you like. If you look at it, I recommend that you scroll to "4. Summary and What Might Actually Salvage Civilization" (the GND in the opening paragraph refers to "the Green New Deal"). This was printed in 2022.
The first link below provides interesting current statistics about world population, government and economics, society and media, environment, food, energy, and health. If you click on the "[+]" symbol following the topic, you will be taken to more detail. A site well worth visiting to become aware of "real-time" statistics. I suggest you look at population statistics and energy statistics.
The following link explains the concepts related to exponential functions. In my view, this is all you need to know to recognize that our current path is unsustainable. Professor Bartlett was one of my physics professors at the University of Colorado in the early 1970s. I don't know when this video was made, but I was not in attendance.
The following is an editorial published in June, 2024 by Professor Ralph Martin in Canada's National Observer. It is a short article well worth reading that summarizes the current state of affairs.
The following is a link to a free book (PDF) that you can download (or read online) if you care to learn about the mathematics used to study our energy dilemma.
If the above links are too much for you to read, or they seem inconclusive, then I suggest you read the following books. They are both by the same author and provide a diverse view of the energy issues faced by modern civilization: