By far, the greatest challenge facing the world economy in the coming century will be competition for scare natural resources and the environmental effects of our overdependence on those resources as factors for economic production. Increasing global population and per capita energy consumption are the two factors which drive the ever faster decline in global resource assets. I include in this all fossil fuels, all minerals used in production, all heavy metals, and water. These resources are the foundation of every development strategy and economic growth model ever devised. Without them, nothing goes on. Without these resources, civilization collapses.
Only 3% of the world’s water is fresh water, even less is drinkable. This statistic is often overlooked, but emphasizes water’s status as humanity’s most vital natural resource. There has been more competition over water supplies than any other resource in history, and this trend will continue for the next hundred years, and if we continue to utilize fresh water for its current uses (irrigation, production, hydroelectric power), water will become the same as any other non-renewable resource: it will eventually run out. Minerals and heavy metals are necessary inputs to production of most goods; especially those most relied upon by societies around the world, such as computers, telecommunications, and transportation vehicles. Increasing competition for these resources will continue as it has, the industrial trade in them becoming even more corrupt and cutthroat. Global petroleum markets offer and excellent view of the next century; all we need for a future prediction is to multiply the conflict.
Competition for the scare global resources necessary for survival and growth has shown us that human beings are far more willing to kill each other over resources than to mitigate problems and find alternatives to their use. If this trend continues (as I foresee it will until the resources are each exhausted), when the resources are finally gone it will still be too late to find solutions. The conflict over the resources will destabilize the international order to a point near collapse. It sounds too apocalyptic to be true, but may actually be worse. At the rate we are heading as a planet, the destabilizing of the international order through resource conflicts will only provide a less secure foundation under which to bear the environmental costs inherited from the age of industrialization.
Fossil fuels have come under increased scrutiny over the past few years, as they should. There is 97% consensus among scientists as to the merits of anthropogenic climate change as a result of greenhouse gas emissions in direct relation to industrial development. No economist, nor most scientists, will argue that the industrial revolution or modern societies are bad things. However, they have come at a cost, one which is yet to be paid. The costs of climate shift are currently being felt across the Sahel regions of Africa with drought and famine, Eastern Europe has lost thousands to one of the coldest winters on record, and at home here in Virginia it is yet to snow since Christmas. We are at the beginning stages of what will eventually define the next century: a shift in our natural environment itself. This will be the greatest threat to the foundation of the international order, and therefore should be of the greatest concern to leaders in the international arena.
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