Or, if the reference class is "science-y Doomsday predictors", then they're almost certainly completely wrong. See Paul Ehrlich (overpopulation), and Matt Simmons (peak oil) for some examples, both treated extremely seriously by mainstream media at time.

I think you are unduly confusing mainstream media with mainstream science. Most people do. Unless they're the actual scientists having their claims deformed, misrepresented, and sensationalised by the media.

This says it all.

When has there been a consensus in the established scientific literature about either certitude of catastrophic overpopulation, or imminent turnaround in oil production?

We have plenty of examples where such science was completely wrong and persisted in being wrong in spite of overwhelming evidence, as with race and IQ, nuclear winter, and pretty much everything in macroeconomics.

Hm. Apparently you also have non-conventional definitions of "overwhelming" and "completely wrong".