Or, Why Don't We Just Create More Resources?
Kommentar von Sharon Astyk (Vorstandsmitglied von ASPO USA) zu einem Artikel auf Forbes von Tim Worstall "We Don't Consume Resources, We Create Them", erschienen auf Casaubon's Book (27. März 2012). Auf ASPO Deutschland mit freundlicher Genehmigung von Sharon Astyk veröffentlicht.
I would like to create more oil. Specifically, I'd like to create it up on my field - a gusher of light, sweet crude would be just the thing to fund my farming habit, plus provide some neat little tax benefits. Rural upstate New York has a sad lack of oil fields, and given its recession-prone economy, I think it would be just the place for some oil.
Fortunately, all I have to do, according to Forbes Magazine, is help along the development of new technologies that will extract all the oil that I'd like upstate New York to have. Because, of course as any dimwit knows, we don't consume resources, we create them.
Please note that I'm not trying to state, as no economist is, that we do not live on a finite Earth. That there isn't some limit to the number of copper atoms available to us, or that oil or natural gas are out there in truly unlimited quantities.
Fortunately, all I have to do, according to Forbes Magazine, is help along the development of new technologies that will extract all the oil that I'd like upstate New York to have. Because, of course as any dimwit knows, we don't consume resources, we create them.
Please note that I'm not trying to state, as no economist is, that we do not live on a finite Earth. That there isn't some limit to the number of copper atoms available to us, or that oil or natural gas are out there in truly unlimited quantities.
The argument is, rather, that while there are indeed such hard limits to availability they are so far away from our current situation that they're irrelevant (for example, the hard limit for tellurium is 120 million tonnes and we use 125 tonnes a year). Thus an entirely different dynamic comes into play, one in which we humans create resources by developing the technologies that make them available to us.
Note that although Tim Worstall mentions peak oil, the resource he actually uses as an example is Tellurium, which, in fact, we aren't depleting very fast because we don't use much of it. Just like oil, right?
Kommentar von Sharon Astyk auf Casaubon's Book weiterlesen »
Kommentar von Sharon Astyk auf Casaubon's Book weiterlesen »
