Peak Earth:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/limits-to-growth-and-related-stuff/
You might say that this is my answer to those who cheerfully assert
that human ingenuity and technological progress will solve all our
problems. For the last 35 years, progress on energy technologies has
consistently fallen below expectations.
I’d actually suggest that this is true not just for energy but for
our ability to manipulate the physical world in general: 2001 didn’t
look much like 2001 [the movie], and in general material life has
been relatively static. (How do the changes in the way we live
between 1958 and 2008 compare with the changes between 1908 and
1958? I think the answer is obvious.)
As someone who agrees with the above view (which I would call anti-
techno-utopianism), especially since it privileges the "global
North" (and the narrative of *its* leftists), I am happy to see this
and other recent posts (though I may not agree with all the points
made) from Krugman:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/19/malthusian-blogging/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/malthus-was-right/
And:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/opinion/21krugman.html
How you answer this question depends largely on what you believe is
driving the rise in resource prices. Broadly speaking, there are
three competing views.
The first is that it’s mainly speculation — that investors, looking
for high returns at a time of low interest rates, have piled into
commodity futures, driving up prices. On this view, someday soon the
bubble will burst and high resource prices will go the way of
Pets.com.
The second view is that soaring resource prices do, in fact, have a
basis in fundamentals — especially rapidly growing demand from newly
meat-eating, car-driving Chinese — but that given time we’ll drill
more wells, plant more acres, and increased supply will push prices
right back down again.
The third view is that the era of cheap resources is over for good —
that we’re running out of oil, running out of land to expand food
production and generally running out of planet to exploit.
I find myself somewhere between the second and third views.
--ravi
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