Module 1 Flashcards
What are resources?
A country’s collective means of supporting itself.
Name the types of resources and describe them
non-renewable: fixed stock, depletable, reserves change over time
natural resources:
- naturally replenished at a decently fast rate
- public or common property
- availability based on sustained yield
recyclable resources:
- exist in a form allowing recovery once their original purpose is fulfilled
- main problem: can be dispersed and mixed with other materials, making them hard to recycle (metals, for example)
What is a technically recoverable reserve? What is an economically recoverable reserve? What type of resource do they apply to?
technically recoverable reserve: % of reserves that are recoverable
economically recoverable reserve: % of technically recoverable reserves for which there is a return
Name and describe the types of reserves
proven reserve: a known quantity of reserve that can be profitably extracted with reasonable certainty
potential reserve: amount of a resource that can be profitably extracted at a given price
What is common property?
Something that is everyone’s but no one’s
What is the availability of natural resources based off of?
sustained yield: The rate at which you can extract a resource, without the ability to continue to do so being compromised. The sustained yield is very hard to define. The rate at which you catch/cut must be MUCH lower than replacement rate
Which resources are most under stress?
renewable and recyclable resources
What was “limits to growth” published by the club of rome, and what main conclusions were drawn from it?
Limits to growth used system dynamics to create projections of various future outcomes
- business-as-usual scenario: a decline in food production would lead to a drop in population size
- non-renewable resources are doubled scenario: an increase in pollution leads to a drop in population
- non renewable resources double AND the pollution problem is somehow solved scenario:
The population increases massively and runs out of food
How, according to “limits of growth”, can we avert collapse?
By controlling population and economic growth through policy and pollution control
What was Thomas Malthus concerned with?
What is the solution in his opinion?
The scarcity of food and resources as a result of overpopulation
1) population grown EXPONENTIALLY, food production grown ARTHMETICALLY
2) solution: curve population growth by way of BIRTH CONTROL and CELIBACY
What is carrying capacity?
What does it depend on?
Who is this an important concept to?
The maximum population of a species that can be supported by a given environment, without the capacity to continue doing so being compromised.
The carrying capacity depends on the resource needs of the species and on resource availability of the specific resource in the environment.
Define the Marxist perspective on resources.
Resource DISTRIBUTION is the problem, not resource scarcity and population growth
Technology will overcome resource limits
Carrying capacity is not fixed
Define the Cornucopian or techno-optimist view
Technology will always overcome resource limits
resource scarcity is not a problem because human ingenuity is the ultimate resource
controlling population growth is immoral, it could be stopping us from finding the cure to poverty.
According to who is controlling population growth immoral
according to the Cornucopian or techno-optimist view, since human ingenuity is the ultimate resource
Describe the scarcity-development cycle
A response to events and actions
1) Easily accessible Reserves exhausted
2) Scarcity
3) Prices rise Stimulate research and development
4) Innovations lead to Substitution, Reuse, recycling
5) New resources “created”
6) Prices fall Demand rises –> back to step 1
