credit card economy

For many centuries we humans have taken things from the earth. And this has led to great advances in our well being, our life expectancy, and our standard of living. These benefits are so large and we have gotten so used to them that we tend to forget two important things.

One is that we are mining resources. That means we are taking out non-renewable resources. Some of these resources have been here since the birth of the planet. Most of these are in large supply, although they may be hard to get to. Think of metal ores, minerals, and other similar items. They are of lesser concern now and we are unlikely to run out anytime soon. 

But others were built up thousands or even millions of years ago. Think of coal, oil and gas. And yet others were built more recently, such as water stored in aquifers. In almost all cases, these "reservoirs" took extremely long periods of time to establish. And while some are theoretically renewable, the rate of renewal is painstakingly slow. Yet we are depleting these items in a matter of a few generations. And the process is accelerating at a near exponential level. As populations grow so do demands.

The second problem is that our mining and our uses create byproducts, also known as pollutants. Pollutants affect all mining, including ore and mineral mining. So while we may not run out of ore, extracting it may become problematic. Pollution is linked to resource availability. They are two sides of one coin.

And while we tend to pay for the mining processes, we never or almost never pay for the pollution part. Even though there have been some recent efforts to rectify this situation, their impact is rather minimal and the vast majority of pollution is unpaid for. Paying for pollution is unpopular even with those who advocate letting market forces take care of everything. But pollution is part of the true cost of items. The true cost of oil is not just in discovery, pumping, refining, distributing, and profit. That is what we pay for today. It is also in air pollution, asthma, lower yields, climate effects, etc. That part we borrow.

Pollution has never been a major problem because our planet is so large compared to us. We could always act as if we had an infinite dump. There are those who think we are still in this phase. They say, how could be cause global warming, we are so small? But how do termites destroy a house?

It is no longer the case. While we are still a ways off from filling up our dump to capacity, the impact of pollution is already very real. And so is the impact of running out of resources, especially water. As the population grows these matters can only get worse. More people means more mining and more pollution. More people also means fewer empty backyards to dump our byproducts in.

Pollution -the current favorite subclass is greenhouse gases causing warming- is a reality and one that is growing rather rapidly. It can manifest itself as a lack of resources.  Pollution has a bad effect on the so-called renewable resources, or things that we grow. Nearly everything that grows is affected by pollution, be it chemical pollution of water and air, warming trends, etc.

Our stewardship or lack thereof resembles the current subprime crisis. Credit was extended to all, and especially those who would never be able to pay it back. We took all that credit and we took it eagerly, never thinking of it as borrowed goods. We took it and spent it. We paid for new cars, new kitchens, new everything. But soon the time will come to pay the piper. Only this crisis will be a bit bigger and farther reaching.

Restraint is unpopular yet it is a good cure. It does not just postpone events as some may think. It may actually prevent them from happening. If you can reduce the load to a point where the system can handle it you can be OK. But if you cross the threshold disaster can happen before you know it.