Resources Are Infinite

In previous centuries when commodities became difficult to secure we never had the massive populations to feed and supply, like we do now. Im glad your optimistic but this is dooms day minus twenty years and we are running out of time.

Are you concerned about the unsustainable use of resources? There is no reason to. Resources are finite and can run out? No, they are not.
How resource economics really works is somewhat counterintuitive and hard to explain, but once understood it makes much more sense than the conventional wisdom that you sadly hear repeated everywhere.

This is how the conventional wisdom goes: There is a finite amount of resources on earth. They are running out of them because we use them unsustainably. We need to "do something" because the free market can not take care of it.

This is how resource economics really works: Humanity uses some resource. Our use of that resource increases. This leads to increased short-term scarcity of the resource. However, instead of running out of it, short-term scarcity leads to progress; we find more, make more, increase efficiency, or find alternatives. And after that progress we are usually better off than if we had not run into that short-term scarcity.
Then we continue the use of resources with the now improved methods, again unsustainably, until one becomes scarce again. Which again will lead to progress. Which again will mean that we are better off than before.
This dynamic incrementally repeated over and over again since the dawn of man. Hundreds of once vitally important resources are no longer scarce at all.

In this sense resources on earth are not finite in any meaningful sense. Counterintuitive as it may seem, resources are not just carried off a stash and used up, they are created by humans. If resources were finite, we would have hit a physical limit a long time ago. Or we would live sustainable and not witness progress. Therefore the view that resources are finite is self-contradicting.
Imagine this: 10.000 BC the earth could feed 4 million people. If resources were finite, how can there be 7 billion now?

This is why the doomsday predictions always turn out wrong; progress does not come by the clock, things improve because of scarcity. The shortage of firewood in the 16th century led to the use of coal. Fear of coal reserves running dry in the 19th century led to the use of oil. The oil crisis in the 20th century led to the use of natural gas and nuclear energy.
At any point in time the use of resources is unsustainable, it would be odd if it were any different, because progress comes from scarcity. Because of this dynamic any projection of resource use into the future will always be bound to predict that we are about to run out. And it will always be wrong.

Examples:
Humans were hunting and gathering wild seeds and animals for 99% of our history. There was little to no progress, because there were enough wild seeds and animals. Only after humans became numerous enough that just gathering resources was no longer sufficient progress came. This lead to the advent of agriculture around 10.000 BC. Agriculture was an important step that allowed us to slowly lift ourselves above subsistence living.

The use of horses in 1890 was unsustainable. In the year 1890 large cities had 150.000 horse carcasses to dispose of a day. The streets were often completely congested with carriages. The pollution from the manure was immense. Any extrapolation of these trends would have predicted that these cities can't grow much more. Then the car was invented, which completely changed our dependence on the former resource. But because of cars we are now using oil unsustainably. Which will cause us to invent, say, hydrogen-powered jetpacks. And completely change the dependency on the resource.

Imagine they had mandated a sustainable use of horses in 1890. The incentives to develop cars would not have been the same. We would have little worry about running out of horses, but we would live without many of the modern conveniences that we take for granted. And with an infant mortality rate 20 times that of today and an average life expectancy of 42.

Imagine they had done something similar in the year 10.000 BC. They could have carried on with no worry of running out of wild seeds and animals. But we would all day be scavenging around for the next meal. At least those of us that survive infancy, as infant mortality would be around half. Average life expectancy would be around 25.

The same is true today, if we coerce the sustainable use of resources, as some are demanding, we will just stifle future progress. It would mean denying our children a better life, and denying the third world the move out of poverty. Just so we can feel safe, and feel like we did something noble. That's very selfish.

The argument from the other side, of course, is that we can not depend on such future progress. We need some sort of plan to be sure or we would just be marching into uncertainty, maybe off a cliff. I think they lack imagination. The odd thing is that today we have greater reason to imagine future progress than they had in the past, yet today we are vastly more scared about this stuff than they were in the past. For someone in 1890 to imagine that hundreds of millions of motorized vehicles would serve humanity was quite a leap. For someone today the technological possibilities of the future are not that hard to imagine, many of them already run on an experimental level.
Two centuries ago most people would have had trouble foreseeing computers. They might have foreseen some steampunk future, but electricity was a concept they did not understand. But for us to imagine matter replicators or nuclear fission is not that difficult.
And the there's all those changes that we can't even imagine now.

Progress doesn't just happen. For 99% of human history there was little progress. If there is no scarcity, there is no reason to develop alternatives. If we were living sustainable, there would be very little progress. In the modern age scarcity is conveyed through prices. Scarce resources become expensive. Finding an alternative will be valuable. This will cause entrepreneurs to try to find alternatives. Therefore the free market is the best way of dealing with resources. Prices will always direct ingenuity to where it is needed.
The notion that any actions beyond the free market are necessary is nonsensical. Scarcity is reflected in prices. High prices means that a resource will be used less. If there was danger of running out that would be reflected in todays prices, since investors would buy up that resource to profit from future prices.

Therefore it makes little sense to view resources as fixed. If you feel better recycling, then go ahead. But demanding that government coerce others into saving resources is misguided and morally wrong.
Even with current technology the peak human population of 9 billion could live the standard of living of Americans. That they do not is entirely a political problem and economical mismanagement. We do not need to summon the political will to "do something". The way to a better future is letting the free market work.

---------- Post added 03-22-2010 at 08:25 PM ----------

If you want to learn more, you can read The Ultimate Resource:
The Ultimate Resource II: People, Materials, and Environment

Not to cherry pick and tap dance around your argument, but, chickens have resources of their own, like feed and water, and whatever else. All those things are heavily dependent on oil.

So - ya oil could be goobersnot or poopsickle and you would be right in your analogy, and you are, that human resources change, and are thus infinite. Unless we can smoothly find a way to transition our ways of living off of oil, and use goobersnot, poopsickle, or some other resource - then we are enslaved to oil, because all other forms of energy, just for fuel purposes, not the products of oil like plastic, have severe limitations from a net energy standpoint.

But I like your thinking, I hope it pans out that way, and one day it very well may - we will be forced to adapt to whatever situation awaits us, but it currently looks as if most governments, corporations, and the people they serve, are simply ignorant of what looms ahead. Or they have shallow pipe dreams of alternative energy, or hybrid Escalades, of somehow saving the day.

Well, I would like to take your viewpoint - honestly. I just want to have a clean conscience about it, and feel that it is, of course, true.

As you, I think, understood, the data I have come across states that oil is soon to go, and oil is imperative to our way of life. I think we could come to some quasi-agreement that eventually, this will happen or could. Oil, physically, in and of itself, is finite. We both agree.

The general statement of the book, I imagine, is that human intellect, thus technology, will save the day. This may be true, but without an understanding of the consequences that would be brought upon the world if it didn't will not help spur along the technological miracle we may be looking for.

(BTW, as far as the 1930 peak, I won't call you any names for disagreeing, because at the moment I can't say.)

edit: I am reading the book, btw.

Is technology the only thing that can reverse this apparent trend of nations "peaking?"

Peak oil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also, according to wiki, the US kept it's oil import quotas until 1972, because US production hadn't peaked. Now, I know, that ANWR is there, or they could just go get some more oil if they really needed it and it was worth the investment, you may say.

But, this may have nothing to do with this, I live in Texas - and I see new oil wells popping up everywhere - in the city, next to parks, next to highways, everywhere.

So it looks, to me, just from my own 2 eyes and what I read, that oil is harder to find in the US - as you may agree. But, there are more and more oil wells I see popping up but I think oil production is still in decline in the US. They are getting less and less oil each time they drill somewhere, it seems.

edit: After further reading of the book, it seems that he is rather convoluted, first of all, but secondly, he seems anchored to the notion that falling energy prices is exactly correlated with the amount of said energy. IE: Since, before his death, they were constantly falling, especially oil, you would think and agree (as you do, I suppose) that scarcity doesn't exist, or else it would be reflected in the market, in its price tag.

But - as we now know, and as he doesn't since he's dead, and this book is over 10 years old, oil prices skyrocketed to an all time high of around $140 a barrel at the end of June, 2008. Soon after we hit a recession, and most would say we are still there.

I know he made a bet on energy prices in 1980, and the bet was up in 1990. I know that confirmed all that he said, and lends credence to his theory. But, would you make a bet with me today that oil prices will be lower in 10 years?