In my last post, I took the opportunity to look holistically the way we view resources, and suggested an alternative way to utilise them. Although an interesting idea, the philosophical ideologies behind the economic structure we exist within is not something I wish to put any wealth of time or research into.
This blog series is intended to look at how we use the resources we have and the impacts we have upon the environment when utilising these resources.
To begin with, we should probably establish a few things. Resources, or more specifically natural resources are natural assets from which we derive a use. This includes land, food, oil, air and, unfortunately, people. Resources must be extracted, harvested or modified in order to provide value. We normally measure the sustainability of the resource's exploitation through whether or not it is renewable, and in turn, this can provide us with an understanding of its ability to naturally recover. These basic concepts of resource demand and supply are looked at in more (economic) detail by Aaron Hatcher.
In true geographic fashion, I will now show you two maps (proportional maps, to be precise) which present the extent to which resources (Figure 1) and fossil fuels (Figure 2) have been extracted by countries across the world. One of the discernible things of interest you can glimpse from these maps is that resource extraction is a global phenomenon and fossil fuel extraction is geographically limited to countries which have access to reserves of fossil fuels (if I'm honest, I always find these maps useless, as they breakdown statistics based on country boundaries, which is far less useful than actually mapping (or giving) the statistic itself - but that's besides the point: they're pretty!).
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| Figure 1: Total resource extraction by country (From: Benjamin Hennig) |
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| Figure 2: Fossil fuel extraction by country (From: Benjamin Hennig) |
Exploitation can be generally defined as the utilisation or selfish use of something for one's own benefit. In the light of future sustainability exploitation should be reduced. The methods by which we as humans exploit resources will not be the focus of this blog, but carry considerable merit when discussing the topic. However, whether the more efficient harvesting and extraction of supply is the way forward, or the increasing the sustainable demand of the resources will be something I investigate.
To fully disclose my stand point, I feel a more sustainable (and reduced) demand would be more beneficial, as this will have a greater impact on supply. If a more efficient harvesting and extraction of supply is utilised, exploitation-levels of demand will still be present. In the shorter term, however, with increasing populations and wealth, a sustainable supply of resources may be the most efficient solution to creating sustainable resource exploitation. At least until we reduce our greed for resources!
Interesting second post! I think the term "sustainable" when it comes to demand, can be contentious. What some might think is a suitable standard of living may not fit someone else's interpretation (take for example, the statistic that if everyone consumed as much as the average American, we'd need 7 Earths to fulfill all consumption)! Therefore I believe sustainable supply is more important for creating an overall "sustainable" system.
ReplyDeleteI think we could almost go as far as calling it relative sustainability, where we have a view of what a sustainable lifestyle is relative to our own culture and the way 'normal' people live within our society. But I completely agree in the shorter term, sustainable supply is more important, but we as consumers in the longer term should be more sustainable in our purchases.
DeleteI think you made a really interesting point about short-term vs long-term challenges to achieve sustainability of resources. Particularly the latter is the most challenging because it requires a shift in people's perspectives or values in what they now believe is a fundamental part of their life. For instance, let's say turn off all the domestic light between 0-5 am to save energy or halve our weekly meat consumption. This would be much harder than increasing their production, I guess. Well, that's the reason why you suggested that it wouldn't be achievable in short term, but I feel we still need to make some continuous efforts for accomplishing it. I very much look forward to your upcoming posts!
ReplyDeleteA conscious effort to lowering long term demand is difficult - as you said - because it requires a shift in people's perspectives or values. Understanding that you do not *need* to eat meat or always keep a light on, and instead being conscious of the impacts is the most important aspect in changing people's perspectives. However, one of the biggest issues is that we cannot see the impacts we have, so we are unable to attribute our actions to the issues.
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