Is the world headed off a Seneca cliff?

It would be some consolation for the feebleness of our selves and our works if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid.

Lucius Anneaus Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, n. 91

Ugo Bardi, The Seneca Effect: why decline is faster than growth, at Cassandra's Legacy via the Oil Drum

Bardi presents a fairly simple model suggesting that this is the case with respect to petro-energy as the driver of the world economy. If you are into energy economics, it's a good read.