Sunday, August 5, 2012

mineral resources are scarce for buyers

Resource scarcity is forcing humanity to reconsider

Recent report by the International Resource Panel of the UNEP draws on substantial research by the Institute for Social Ecology, Klagenfurt.

The United Nations Environment Program is today, 9th May 2011 in Geneva, its latest report on resource consumption and environmental consequences before. The authors Marina Fischer-Kowalski (Institute for Social Ecology, Alpen-Adria University, Austria) and Mark Swilling (University of Stellenbosch, South Africa) come to the conclusion that further economic growth at the same rate as before by the cost of resource consumption can walk plant biomass, fossil fuels, metals, industrial materials and building materials.

By 2050, mankind is annually 140 billion tons of minerals, ores consume fossil fuels and biomass per year. This is three times as much as the current consumption. These values ​​are valid, if economic growth continues in the same extent as before the intended use of resources.


The calculations are based on the Institute for Social Ecology developed using time series of social resources for the 20th Century to the present day. Since 1900, global consumption has increased almost tenfold, while the World GDP has risen over the same period by a factor of 23rd Resource consumption and economic growth have thus indeed decoupled increasingly, resource consumption in industrialized countries has stagnated over the past three decades even, but would also cleared the rest of the world to the excessive consumption of the industrialized nations, as he is currently in countries with rapidly growing economies such as China , India and Brazil already looming, the carrying capacity of the planet beyond. The path of the so-called "contraction and convergence" would be that developed countries halve their consumption of resources by 2050, while the rest of the world catches up.

As an alternative to threaten violent conflicts over resources, as they begin to emerge already in some places. "The limits of the planet Earth are brought into proximity clearly visible," said the authors of the report.

(Source: Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt | Institute for Social Ecology)

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