03/15/01: Bickle

Posted By: grundle


No, I didn't have to say both of those sentences.

There's nothing wrong with the amout of garbage that we produce.

Those who claim that we are running out of natural resources are wrong. If a resource was scarce, then it's price would be high, and people would avoid throwing it in the trash. For example, most people don't throw gold into the trash.

History shows that over time, the inflation-adjusted prices of natural resources becomes cheaper and cheaper. So saying that today's people should conserve resources for future generations is the same thing as saying that the poor should conserve resources for the rich.

Anyway, here's a copy and paste of something that I just posted yesterday, exaplaining why we will never run out of natural resources:

Several decades ago there was a group called "The Club of Rome" and they published a book called "Limits to Growth." Is said that after a certain year (I think it was 1975 but I'm not sure) it would be IMPOSSIBLE for there to be any more economic growth. They also had predicitons for when the world would run out of each natural resource. According to this book, the world would run out of oil by 1980 (or maybe some other year, I forget the exact year), copper by 1987 (or some other year), etc. Before the 20th centiry was over, we were supposed to run out of just about everything.

Their proposed "solution" to these "problems" was that they wanted all the governments of the world to "freeze" economic growth at current levels. That was their solution - have the governments of the world take over complete control of the economy.

Well, all of their predictions were wrong. In fact, the exact opposite happenend. Since the book came out, world GNP has more than tripled. We haven't run out of any of those resources. In fact, the inflation-adjusted prices of all of these resources have fallen substantally, indicating that these resourcrs have increased in abundancy.

In today's modern technological world, when resources are controlled by the free market, we can indeed behave as if the supply of these resources is infiite.

Suppose that all 3 of the following conditions are met for any paritcular resource:

#1 The resource is privately owned.

#2 The distribution of the resource is controlled by the free market.

#3 The price of the resource is conotrolled by the free market.

If all 3 of these conditions are met, then we will never run out of the resource.

If a resource starts to dwindle in supply, then it's price will go up. This higher price will encourage people to cut back on their use of the resource, and to look for a cheaper substitute. The higher price will also encourage producers of the resource to find new supplies of the resource, and/or to develop a cheaper substitute.

In our modern technological society, where all 3 of the above conditions have existed, there has never been a shortage of any natural resource, and we have never run out of any natural resource.

The predicers of doom and gloom continue to predict that we are running out of things. But among resources that have all 3 of the above conditions, they cannot come up with even one example of a resource being used up and having disappeared.

Anyone who understands economics, who understands the law of supply and demand, will understand that when all of the 3 above conditions are met, we will never run out of the resource.

Consider gold. Gold is the best material to use for electrical wiring. There is only a very small amount of gold on earth. But he haven't run out of gold. Why? Because gold is very expensive. So people don't use gold in large quantities. For electrical wiring, people usually use copper instead, because copper is a lot cheaper.

I have explained this dozens of times.

The problem is that most people on this website don't understand basic economics, and they don't understand the law of supply and demand.

Anyway, among natural resources where all 3 of those conditions are met, in our modern, technological society, we will never run of any of those resources.

Anyway, the Kyoto Treaty isn't really any different than the Club of Rome. Their attempt to get us to cut back on CO2 emissions is the same thing as the Club of Rome trying to get us to cut back on economic growth. In both cases, it's nothing more than an attempt to turn control of the economy over to the goverment.


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