Rubber is Critical, and Vulnerable
Often overlooked, rubber could as easily bring the economy to a halt as oil could.
Resource Depletion
Water – Reason for Conflict or Cooperation in the Middle East?
It has often been predicted that the next war in the Middle East would be fought not over land, not over oil, but over water.
Commodity Prices Climb to 24-Year High on Global Demand Growth
Commodity prices surged to a 24-year high, led by gains in copper and crude oil, on concern that global economic growth is eroding inventories of raw materials faster than supplies can be replenished.
China’s Upward Mobility Strains World Resources
If per capita income in China grows at eight percent per year — a reduction from the red-hot pace of 9.5 percent it has grown since 1978 — it will overtake the current per capita U.S. income in just over 25 years, according to the latest analysis by the Earth Policy Institute (EPI).
The long road down: decline and the deindustrial future
The crucial needs that must be met in an age of decline are damage control, cultural survival, and the building of a new society amid the ruins of the old. Political and business interests aren’t going to meet these needs, or do anything else helpful; oil is to the modern industrial nations what corn was to the ancient Maya, and the ahauob of Washington and Wall Street have turned to war just as their Maya equivalents did.
Ex-UN chief warns of water wars
Competition for water resources could provoke wars in Africa and the Middle East, Boutros Boutros Ghali has said.
Australia: Continent at risk of a dry tsunami
Ours may be remembered as the generation that allowed Australia to die, writes Paul Sheehan.
Canada: Natural gas, base metals drive prices to record high
Commodity prices reached a record high during November, and the three-year “bull run” looks as if it will continue at least into the first half of 2005, said Patricia Mohr, vice-president of economics for Bank of Nova Scotia.
Australia: Labels could save $600m of water
Australia is to become the first country to introduce a national water efficiency rating system on toilets, shower-heads, washing machines, dishwashers and taps.
Prices and Production over a complete Hubbert Cycle: the Case of the American Whale Fisheries in 19th Century
Grasping the reality of Hubberts peak is difficult for many, possibly because crude oil may be the first nonrenewable resource to pass through such a peak. But a resource does not need to be a nonrenewable to show a Hubbert curve. A biological resource which is exploited much faster than it is replaced may also follow a bell-curve, and the whaling industry of the 19th Century a good example.
Russian government concerned over possible depletion of mineral resources
The sustainable development of the Russian mineral resources sector requires its demonopolization, according to Russian Natural Resources Minister Yuriy Trutnev.
People cause more soil erosion than all natural processes
Human activity causes 10 times more erosion of continental surfaces than all natural processes combined, an analysis by a University of Michigan geologist shows.