But it's all considered in a vacuum. Even though the majority of the population don't understand the problem, this is ok. We have an economic system that benefits those who predict impending needs and place themselves in situations to provide for them.

Take a look at the green industry ramping up. In the not too distance future, I think most of us here expect oil replacement to be highly profitable.

I disagree with these doomsday predictions from pure arithmetic. It seems to me that the reverse is true - exponential "problems" provide the core drive for our economy. What drives the entire start-up industry? I'd say it's identifying profitable exponential growth scenarios and providing for them. To me, this explains how primarily capitalist countries tend toward stability, until them become strangled by ever increasing regulation (that's not to say I'm against regulation in general, but I think we need to be as proactive about removing it as we are about adding it [wow, I went off topic there]).