{"id":59688,"date":"2021-10-05T17:02:43","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T22:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=59688"},"modified":"2021-10-05T17:02:43","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T22:02:43","slug":"things-do-not-have-to-run-out-for-their-scarcity-to-become-destabilizing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=59688","title":{"rendered":"Things do not have to run out for their scarcity to become destabilizing"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"post-title entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/resourceinsights.blogspot.com\/2021\/10\/things-do-not-have-to-run-out-for-their.html\">Things do not have to run out for their scarcity to become destabilizing<\/a><\/h3>\n<div id=\"post-body-5816802381165332206\" class=\"post-body entry-content\">\n<p>Economic\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/cornucopian\">cornucopians<\/a>\u00a0who believe &#8220;innovation&#8221; and &#8220;substitution&#8221; will solve every constraint on the resources needed for modern civilization use a clever piece of misdirection to deflect the arguments of those concerned about limits. These cornucopians say that the claim by the limits crowd that we will &#8220;run out&#8221; of resources we need to maintain the smooth functioning of our complex industrial society is nonsense.<\/p>\n<p>But that statement is a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Straw_man\">straw man<\/a>\u00a0designed to avoid the real issue, an issue which we see in abundance all around us today, namely: Things do not have to run out for their scarcity to become destabilizing. This is a key argument among those concerned about limits and the effects of those limits on the stable functioning of modern society.<\/p>\n<p>We have not run out of fossil fuels but shortages are creating widespread problems in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/sep\/28\/power-shortages-in-china-hits-homes-and-factories-prompting-global-supply-fears\">China<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/2021\/10\/01\/europe-s-energy-crisis-why-are-natural-gas-prices-soaring-and-how-will-it-affect-europeans\">Europe<\/a>. We are not running out of water in the world, but there is not enough of it in the right place to supply all the needs of those living in the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/us\/us-declares-first-ever-shortage-western-reservoir-triggering-water-cuts-2021-08-16\/\">American Southwest<\/a>. That lack of water is leading to a reduction in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/in-the-american-southwest-the-energy-problem-is-water\">geothermal power generation<\/a>\u00a0as well. And, drought in California is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/emergencypreparednesspartnerships.com\/california-hydroelectric-generation-declining-due-to-severe-drought-conditions\/\">reducing the amount hydroelectric generation by a third so far this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"more\"><\/a>High natural gas prices in Europe are not only affecting those who burn the fuel for heat and transportation, but also those who use natural gas as a chemical feedstock.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/09\/16\/business\/natural-gas-prices-britain-fertilizer.html\">Two British fertilizer plants ceased operations<\/a> because the high price of natural gas is making it too costly to produce nitrogen fertilizers&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Things do not have to run out for their scarcity to become destabilizing Economic\u00a0cornucopians\u00a0who believe &#8220;innovation&#8221; and &#8220;substitution&#8221; will solve every constraint on the resources needed for modern civilization use a clever piece of misdirection to deflect the arguments of those concerned about limits. These cornucopians say that the claim by the limits crowd that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,7],"tags":[154,4752,4967,4053,31091,3237],"class_list":["post-59688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-survival-2","tag-complexity","tag-kurt-cobb","tag-resource-insights","tag-shortages","tag-supply-chain-disruptions","tag-supply-chains"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59688"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59689,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59688\/revisions\/59689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}