Abundance/Scarcity Position Paper

I believe that we exist in a world of Abundance. I believe the driving force behind our world of abundance is that we are curious, capable beings driven by personal desires. Our mind is capable of great vision when confronted by obstacles. The beauty of the human race is that we are a diverse population. There are those in our race that are visionaries. These individuals are driven to explore endless possibilities when faced with obstacles. We are a species that has the ability to evolve and our resourcefulness has resulted in technological advances that defy the expected.

As Jerry Taylor states, "Resources have been scarce since the beginning of time". Doomsayers have been predicting catastrophe for the past 200 years. There have been the gasoline lines of 1970, Carter administration's Global 2000 report and many others that stated that civilization was on the verge of collapse. We are still here, civilization has not collapsed.

Scarcity proponents will state that within the next 20 years we will have an increasing middle class totaling 3 billion compared to 1.8 billion today. This increasing middle class will lead to an increase in demand for resources. The environment will become more vulnerable due to the growth in resource consumption. That we will use up all available resources and the world will not be large enough or have enough resources to support the growing population and the growing demand.

I believe, based on my readings, that the opinion above is the "glass half empty view". Our brains are programed since prehistoric times, for survival; our survival instinct causes us to hear and react more readily to negative information. Our brain still gravitates to negative information but we have evolved as thinking, scientific problem solvers, to find alternatives.

The abundance that we will experience will not be acquired without first experiencing challenges and periods of shortage. We are entering a period of change. The world has become a global playing field. Wealth will be distributed throughout the globe, the number of individuals in the middle class will increase exponentially and the world will be aware of the divisions within the classes. As the world become one landscape and the living standards and food consumption increases, demands will be placed on the earth that will surpass any demands of the past. We must and will adapt to these changes. As stated in, Abundance, The future is better than you think, "Technology is a resource-liberating mechanism. It can make the once scarce the now abundant".

Let's discuss for one moment some of the various resources that may be scarce as the population increases. One of the most talked about resources is energy. Energy can be fossil, non-fossil and renewable. According to Jerry Taylor, energy stocks are increasing. The increase in these has resulted in dropping prices. New technologies have reduced the demand through fuel efficiency. Scientist are finding new ways to extract fossil fuels such as hydraulic fracking. They are also finding ways to harness kinetic energy to bring technology and energy to third world countries.

Another resource that some state will be scarce is agriculture. Famine and droughts in Asia and Africa seem to lend credibility to this statement. If we look closer however, it is clear that agricultural output has increased over the years. Jerry Taylor documents in his UN conference Agenda 21 that technical advances in farm equipment, pesticides, fertilizers, irrigation techniques, bioengineering and soil management have led to a doubling of the world food production and a 30 percent increase in farmland productivity. Economist Thomas De Gregory observes that " if there is hunger in the world-and so there is, in abundance, even in wealthy countries-it is because of maldistribution of food, not insufficient global production. We must work on our food supply chain. Technology and agricultural skill must be utilized to prevent erosion damage to soils.

Water supplies, which have been considered abundant and free resource, are also showing signs of overuse and a tendency toward scarcity. Bloomberg reports that water reservoirs are drying up and that the abundant supply of water should no longer be taken for granted. This decrease in abundance will force companies to move closer to water supplies and will increase the need for desalination processes and changes to how much and how we use this precious resource.

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