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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cogito who wrote (129738)	1/31/2010 12:23:38 AM
From: Sam	Respond to of 542141

Yes, cod is a great (current) example of resource depletion. It was a staple in many parts of Europe, especially northern Europe, extremely common. It could be gone soon (well, a generation or two) if current efforts to regulate its catch aren't successful. There has been squabbling about those limitations for the past 20 years, since so many fishermen have depended on it for so long. They don't like being told it is endangered, and that their actions today might lead to its extinction in a generation or two. Gosh what a surprise. They should talk to the people in California who were saying the same things 20 years about their salmon catch. They didn't believe that the salmon was endangered. The California salmon season has been canceled the past couple of years due to depleted stocks. Fishermen are on tenterhooks now about the 2010 season. At least now they are aware that resource depletion can actually endanger a species (granted, it wasn't just overfishing that endangered the CA salmon; it was also dam construction that destroyed their habitat). Gosh what a shock.... People who can't see trends and look 20 or 30 years ahead. Who can trust those environmental extremists who keep talking about resource depletion? They are just enemies of progress, they don't want anyone to make a living, they just want everyone to return to subsistence farming.

To: Cogito who wrote (129738)	2/1/2010 3:33:28 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 542141

That depends on what resources you're talking about. Specific resources do run down or even out. I'm talking resources in general. New techniques allow us to do more with less if we needed to, but also to do more with more, as the base of our resources grows since what becomes a resource is determined by economic and technological progress. Many things that are worthless now will be valuable resources in the future. Nuclear energy would seem to be one of the most sustainable sources, but there is now a worldwide shortage of uranium. Uranium isn't the only substance that can be used in nuclear reactors. Thorium can be as well. Also breeder reactors can create more fuel. While people keep underestimating the time it will take, eventually we are very likely to have usable fusion power, even if it takes a century or two. Solar power satellites in space might help fill the gap if fusion is delayed, and there will probably be whole new techniques that we don't even have the theoretical physics for right now. ----------- “Economic growth occurs whenever people take resources and rearrange them in ways that are more valuable. A useful metaphor for production in an economy comes from the kitchen. To create valuable final products, we mix inexpensive ingredients together according to a recipe. The cooking one can do is limited by the supply of ingredients, and most cooking in the economy produces undesirable side effects. If economic growth could be achieved only by doing more and more of the same kind of cooking, we would eventually run out of raw materials and suffer from unacceptable levels of pollution and nuisance. History teaches us, however, that economic growth springs from better recipes, not just from more cooking. New recipes generally produce fewer unpleasant side effects and generate more economic value per unit of raw material. Every generation has perceived the limits to growth that finite resources and undesirable side effects would pose if no new recipes or ideas were discovered. And every generation has underestimated the potential for finding new recipes and ideas. We consistently fail to grasp how many ideas remain to be discovered. Possibilities do not add up. They multiply.” - Paul Romer