plundering the planet

cassandralegacy | Ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to be here and my task today is to tell you about something that stands at the basis of everything we do: mineral resources. It it is the subject of a book that is the result of a research program sponsored by the Club of Rome and that has involved me and 16 co-authors.

For the time being we have only the German version, we are working at the English one, but that will take some time - a few months. In any case, the title should be clear to you even if you don't speak German and you can notice that we say "The Plundered Planet;" not "The Improved Planet", or "The Developed Planet". No, this is the concept: plundering. We have been acting with mineral resources as if we were pirates looting a captured galleon: grabbing everything we can, as fast as we can. 

 

Now, of course, there is a problem with the idea of plundering planet Earth. It is how long we can go on plundering. At the basic level, it is a question of common sense: we know that once we have burned oil, it is gone. We know that after we have dispersed copper in tiny bits all over we can't recover it any more. We know that diamonds are forever, perhaps, but also that once we have taken them out of a mine, then there are no more diamonds in there. Mineral resources are not infinite. 

 

So, there is this nagging question: how long can we go on mining? It is a question that started being asked in the 19th century and the answer is both easy and difficult. It is easy to say "not forever," but it is difficult to say for how long, exactly. So, what form will take depletion? How is it going to be felt on the economy. And, since we see ourselves as very smart, can we find some trick to avoid, or at least delay, the problem?

 

The first study that attempted to quantify these question was a report that was sponsored by the club of Rome back in 1972. You have surely heard about it: here is the cover of that book.

 

 

Now, you have probably also heard that this study was "wrong," that is, that it had made wrong predictions, that it was based on bad data and flawed models, and similar accusations. That was the result of a wave of criticism, a true tsunami I'd say, that engulfed the book and its authors after the study was published. The authors were accused of being not just wrong, but part of a global conspiracy aimed at enslaving humankind and exterminating the colored races (I am not kidding, that was said several times).

However, if there was such a harsh reaction to the book, it was also because it went to the core of some of the basic assumptions of our society, of our deeply held belief that, somehow, not only growth is always good, but that we can keep growing forever. But the book said that it wasn't possible. And it didn't say just that, it said that the limits to growth were to appear in a time span that was not of centuries, but just of decades. Below, you can see the main results of the 1972 study, the run that was called the "base case" (or "standard run"). The calculations were redone in 2004, finding similar results.