<<'The pie is fixed in size' actually does apply here. There are limits to the supplies of raw materials, energy, clean water, air, food, and increasing competition for these resources will drive up pollution and health costs.>
No, the resources are effectively unlimited. There are oceans of water, giant rivers, sun all over the place, kilometres of air, food by the megatonne with dieting more of a problem than food shortages and soon the world's human population will be dwindling. >
Water can be extracted from oceans by deionization, from rivers in New Zealand and elsewhere and shipped in supertankers, it can be recycled using deionizers and other purifying processes.
The sun covers a LOT of desert in almost constant sunshine, which can be used for photovoltaic supply, or crops, or other conversion processes. Okay, desert isn't unlimited, but it'll take a long time to cover Death Valley, let alone the Sahara and Australia. True, the sun will go out one day, so that's limited too, but effectively unlimited.
There's all the air we can use, though it is, admittedly, limited to the region near Earth, which is convenient as satellites can fly reasonably close, enabling fast communications. It is effectively unlimited as the amount of oxygen is very plentiful and chlorophyl is filling it again faster than we can empty it. You don't read about worries about oxygen depletion. You do read about the need for antioxidants!
Food is not a problem anywhere on Earth. Obesity is the problem and political processes are the problem. Starvation is due to civil war and deliberate or ignorant political actions. There's no shortage of food or the ability to produce more. The days of famines are over. Africa is a problem because of political disasters. Africa could support a billion people, or even the whole world's population. And it might need to if there's an ice age and we all move there.
Iron, aluminium and all sorts of things are not in short supply. They have a cost and even that cost isn't very high.
The main problem is political wastefulness which causes poverty and 'shortages'. Governments waste a third of the world's resources [more or less].
In fact, I think I'll upgrade my comment to unlimited. Because we don't even need the sun. We can invent our own sun. We can produce oxygen from limestone and recycle it as much as we like, even if the plants go on strike.
Mqurice |
