Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part One The Internalization of Externalities as a Central Theme of Environmental Policy
- Part Two Strategies for Internalizing Externalities
- Part Three Standard-Oriented Instruments of Environmental Policy
- Part Four Extensions of the Basic Environmental Economics Model
- Part Five International Environmental Problems
- Part Six Natural Resources and Sustainable Development
- Epilogue: Three Types of Externality and the Increasing Difficulty of Internalizing Them
- References
- Index
Part Six - Natural Resources and Sustainable Development
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part One The Internalization of Externalities as a Central Theme of Environmental Policy
- Part Two Strategies for Internalizing Externalities
- Part Three Standard-Oriented Instruments of Environmental Policy
- Part Four Extensions of the Basic Environmental Economics Model
- Part Five International Environmental Problems
- Part Six Natural Resources and Sustainable Development
- Epilogue: Three Types of Externality and the Increasing Difficulty of Internalizing Them
- References
- Index
Summary
In this part, the economics of natural resources and sustainable development are presented in an overview. Specific aspects can be addressed only briefly in the space available here. Following the literature, we divide natural resources into exhaustible and renewable ones. The former are defined by the fact that the total stock of them in the Earth is a constant within the time frame of relevance to human planning. A unit of an exhaustible resource used in the present thus reduces the stock available in the future by precisely one unit. Here the present and the future are in total rivalry over the utilization of the resources.
The standard examples of exhaustible resources come from the area of mining, with fossil fuels and mineral raw materials being frequently mentioned. For exhaustible resources such as metals, the rivalry between present and future utilization can be mitigated by recycling.
Renewable (also called regenerable) resources can be increased in the time frame of relevance to human planning. The growth rate of the stock depends on many determinants, particularly the size of the stock itself. The connection between present utilization and future possibility of utilization is thus more complex for renewable resources than for exhaustible ones. Important examples of resources in this category are forestry and fish stocks.
Resource Exhaustion – The End of Humankind?
Introduction
One of the central questions that excited the public and the scientific world in the 1970s and beyond was: will humanity decline and fall because of a shortage of resources? The debate has slackened somewhat in the meantime, but continually flares up again.
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- Environmental EconomicsTheory and Policy, pp. 290 - 325Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010