From the 'father' of the marginalist revolution:
The Coal Question was a book published in 1865 by economist William Stanley Jevons which explored the implications of Britain's reliance on coal. Given that coal was a finite, non-renewable energy resource, Jevons raised the question of sustainability. "Are we wise," he asked rhetorically, "in allowing the commerce of this country to rise beyond the point at which we can long maintain it?" His central thesis was that Britain's supremacy over global affairs was transitory, given the finite nature of its primary energy resource. In propounding this thesis, Jevons covered a range of issues central to sustainability, including limits to growth, overpopulation, overshoot,[1] post-global relocalization,[2] energy return on energy input (EROEI), taxation of the energy resource, renewable energy alternatives, and resource peaking (this last subject widely discussed today under the rubric of peak oil).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coal_QuestionDiscuss.
