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openspace4lifeIn 1980, Julian Simon famously bet Paul Ehrlich that the prices of five raw metals of Ehrlich's choosing would fall over the next decade. He won the bet, and used this and other evidence to support his theory that human ingenuity, which he called the "ultimate resource," would always prevent resource scarcity from becoming a problem.
The book Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken and Amory and L. Hunter Lovins, published in 1999, notes that "The prices for most raw materials are at a twenty-eight-year low and are still falling. Supplies are cheap and appear to be abundant," but "ingenuity" is only one of several factors promoting this impression. The list of causes they give includes "the collapse of the Asian economies, globalization of trade, cheaper transport costs*, imbalances in market power that enable commodity traders and middlemen to squeeze producers, and in large measure the success of powerful new extractive technologies, whose correspondingly extensive damage to ecosystems is seldom given a monetary value. After richer ores are exhausted, skilled mining companies can now level and grind up whole mountains of poorer-quality ores to extract the minerals desired. But while technology keeps ahead of depletion, providing what appear to be ever-cheaper metals, they only appear cheap, because the stripped rainforest and the mountain of toxic tailings spilling into rivers, the impoverished villages . . . are not factored into the cost of production."
In short, "ingenious" methods of extracting some resources (such as metals) are destroying others (such as trees, fish, and farmland). Ultimately, the cost of such measures, both to other industries and to quality of life, will be so great that local populations and even other businesses will be forced to intervene.
The right way to continue to ensure that prices for resources don't rise, then, is not to insensibly try to expand resource supplies forever, but to use even more ingenious techniques to reduce demand for raw materials through efficiency and recycling, and ensure that non-recyclable "wastes" are biodegradeable and can serve to replenish the "natural capital" that resource extraction uses up.
*Of course, now that oil is approaching $100 a barrel, transportation costs are much higher than they were eight years ago.
P.S. Natural Capitalism focuses partly on another radical step to reduce the flow of resources needed to make new products: the creation of "a service economy in which consumers obtain services by leasing or renting goods rather than buying them outright" (italics in original). Oddly enough, the concept originated independently from two sources, one of whom was Michael Braungart, a co-author of the book Cradle to Cradle, which didn't mention the concept of a rent/lease economy that I can recall. Yet because a rented product always returns to the manufacturer to be cleaned up and re-rented (and eventually recycled), the other originator, Walter Stahel, "called the process 'cradle-to-cradle.'" Weird, eh?
The book Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken and Amory and L. Hunter Lovins, published in 1999, notes that "The prices for most raw materials are at a twenty-eight-year low and are still falling. Supplies are cheap and appear to be abundant," but "ingenuity" is only one of several factors promoting this impression. The list of causes they give includes "the collapse of the Asian economies, globalization of trade, cheaper transport costs*, imbalances in market power that enable commodity traders and middlemen to squeeze producers, and in large measure the success of powerful new extractive technologies, whose correspondingly extensive damage to ecosystems is seldom given a monetary value. After richer ores are exhausted, skilled mining companies can now level and grind up whole mountains of poorer-quality ores to extract the minerals desired. But while technology keeps ahead of depletion, providing what appear to be ever-cheaper metals, they only appear cheap, because the stripped rainforest and the mountain of toxic tailings spilling into rivers, the impoverished villages . . . are not factored into the cost of production."
In short, "ingenious" methods of extracting some resources (such as metals) are destroying others (such as trees, fish, and farmland). Ultimately, the cost of such measures, both to other industries and to quality of life, will be so great that local populations and even other businesses will be forced to intervene.
The right way to continue to ensure that prices for resources don't rise, then, is not to insensibly try to expand resource supplies forever, but to use even more ingenious techniques to reduce demand for raw materials through efficiency and recycling, and ensure that non-recyclable "wastes" are biodegradeable and can serve to replenish the "natural capital" that resource extraction uses up.
*Of course, now that oil is approaching $100 a barrel, transportation costs are much higher than they were eight years ago.
P.S. Natural Capitalism focuses partly on another radical step to reduce the flow of resources needed to make new products: the creation of "a service economy in which consumers obtain services by leasing or renting goods rather than buying them outright" (italics in original). Oddly enough, the concept originated independently from two sources, one of whom was Michael Braungart, a co-author of the book Cradle to Cradle, which didn't mention the concept of a rent/lease economy that I can recall. Yet because a rented product always returns to the manufacturer to be cleaned up and re-rented (and eventually recycled), the other originator, Walter Stahel, "called the process 'cradle-to-cradle.'" Weird, eh?
