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Another non-renewable resource humans exploit is subsoil minerals, such as precious metals, mainly used to produce industrial commodities. Intensive agriculture is an example of a mode of production that hinders many aspects of the natural environment , for example the degradation of forests in a terrestrial ecosystem and water pollution in an ...
People queue up for soup and bread at relief tents in the aftermath of the Great Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889. In economics, scarcity "refers to the basic fact of life that there exists only a finite amount of human and nonhuman resources which the best technical knowledge is capable of using to produce only limited maximum amounts of each economic good."
The resource curse, also known as the paradox of plenty or the poverty paradox, is the hypothesis that countries with an abundance of natural resources (such as fossil fuels and certain minerals) have lower economic growth, lower rates of democracy, or poorer development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources. [1]
Measures of resource consumption are resource intensity and resource efficiency. Industrialization and globalized markets have increased the tendency for overconsumption of resources. The resource consumption rate of a nation does not usually correspond with the primary resource availability, this is called resource curse.
The depletion of resources has been an issue since the beginning of the 19th century amidst the First Industrial Revolution.The extraction of both renewable and non-renewable resources increased drastically, much further than thought possible pre-industrialization, due to the technological advancements and economic development that lead to an increased demand for natural resources.
Increased resource scarcity leads to increase and fluctuation of prices, which drives advances in technology for more efficient use of resources such that costs will be considerably reduced, almost to zero. They thus claim that following an increase in scarcity from now, the world will enter a post-scarcity age between 2050 and 2075. [21]
In northern Peru, the World Bank's business-lending arm is part owner of the Yanacocha gold mine, accused by impoverished farming communities of despoiling their land in pursuit of the precious ore. The bank and IFC have stepped up investments in projects deemed to have a high risk of serious and environment damage, including oil pipelines, mines and even coal-fired power plants, an ...
A neoliberal approach constructs nature as a "world currency," valued in international markets and given "the opportunity to earn its own right to survive." [17] This "selling nature to save it" approach [18] requires economic valuation — either indirectly, as with cost-benefit analysis and contingent valuation, or through direct commodification.