Sustainability & Finite Resources

["Bruce R. McFarling" <ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 14 Sep 1997 09:55:11 -0400 (EDT), "Gregoire de Nowell
(ci-devant)" <GN842@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>As Morris Adelman observes the finite resource argument
>is so obvious that it scarcely elicits any challenge.  In the
>long run prices of non-renewable goods ought to rise.

>Adelman points out however that a whole spectrum of finite
>goods have been declining in price for fifty years, and many
>of them have been declining in spite of efforts to use
>stockpiles and other policies to keep them up.  It may be the
>case, he suggests, that finite resource arguments do not
>seem to describe accurately how in fact resources are
>developed and priced.  He concentrates his argument on
>the increasing technological efficiency with which
>formerly non-profitable resources can be developed.  I
>always add to that (his is an oil-specific view) that
>inter-commodity substitution seems to increase exponentially
>as technologiy developes.

	A point that also must be taken into account is the
impact of the post WWII decolonisation, combined with the
effects of the 1930's primary products slump and WWII
transportation constraints on the independent peripheral
nations (though not necessarily independent economies),
such as the Latin American nations.
	From the late 1940's on, there has been a substantial
increase in the *extent* of resource acquisition.  Finite
resource arguments do *not* imply that as we go from using
resources from a small fraction of the globe with gross
inefficiency and technologies that can only capture a
fraction of the resources at those locations to a large
fraction of the globe with better efficiency and more
effective resource recovery, prices will necessarily
decline.  That is always the danger in naive attempts to
apply arguments in a Malthusian vein: the logical argument
that one cannot *indefinitely* support an exponential increase
in requirements with an arithmetic increase in availability
of resources required does not say whether the crunch will be
immediate, in years, deacdes, or centuries.  Further, many of
the increases in availability of requirements are no arithmetic
but logistic increases, which can do a much better job of
sustaining an exponential increase, if the exponential increase
catches up to the available resources near the beginning of
the logistic increase.
	The question of limits cannot be addressed in mathematic-
logical terms alone.  We also need empirical information.  The
original Club of Rome model includes elements that are missing
from the models of people who critiqued it, and does not include
elements that the critics consider essential.  But although the
question of whether there *are* exponential rates of increase in
material resource requirements and exponential rates of increase
in reliance on the biosphere's recovery capacity is a simpler
question than people try to make it, it is an empirical question.
If there is, that exponential increase is unsustainable, and the
complex question is whether we are moving to a more sustainable way
of doing things, and if not, or if not fast enough, how to do so.
I suspect that if we evaluate the costs and benefits of moving toward
a more sustainable system in the terms of the current system of
rewards and penalties that is part and parcel of the unsustainable
system, the result will be "not so fast, and not so much".  That
evaluation would seem to be more effective as a diagnostic of the
problem than as a guide to the solution.

Virtually,

Bruce McFarling, Newcastle, NSW
ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Virtually,

Bruce McFarling, Newcastle, NSW
ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx