Resources - Man's Conquest of Nature

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Resource Panel released their latest report on the dire state of our resources, the primary raw materials we extract from nature to manufacture the products we use every day.

I'd like to complain that we have climate change tunnel vision but that is not the case. The truth is that for the whole existence of the human race, we have not valued the natural resources available to us.

Fossils and DNA suggest people looking like us, anatomically modern Homo sapiens, evolved around 300,000 years ago. Surprisingly, archaeology – tools, artefacts, cave art – suggest that complex technology and cultures, “behavioural modernity”, evolved more recently: 50,000-65,000 years ago. The history of human existence has little value on its own when we constrast it to resource extraction over 300,000 years.

The US agency, Population Reference Bureau, periodically updates one of its most popular features, 'How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth?' and writes,

"Calculating the number of people who have ever lived is part science and part art. No demographic data exist for more than 99% of the span of human existence. Still, with some assumptions about population size throughout human history, we can get a rough idea of this number: ?About 117 billion members of our species have ever been born on Earth."

117 billion people whose ability to survive required extracting resources. And now there is no more left. Almost no more left. That is easy and economically feasible to access. We blame our insatiable consumptive appetites, except that is far too simplistic an answer. The truth is humans have always considered ourselves above nature.

Dr Sherwood Taylor's 1948 book, Man's Conquest of Nature, "The steps in man's gradual conquest of Nature, that is to say, the means by which he has acquired mastery over tile forces of Nature and used them and the substances of the crust of the earth, to gain his material ends. A beginning was made with the development of the crafts and, not least among them, the art of writing.

Then came the Greek contribution, the application of thought and reasoning to the phenomena of Nature, and later, the realization that for further progress in our knowledge of the universe and control over its forces, reasoning and deduction must be based on accurate observations and measurement. It is the story of the growth of natural science by experiment and of the use by man of power, derived ultimately from the energy of the sun, of materials and machinery to improve his lot; to assist him in his war against poverty, against distance and against death."

The key question is no longer whether a transformation towards global sustainable resource consumption and production is necessary but how to make it happen now. Addressing this reality, based on evolving concepts of a just transition, is an essential part of any credible and justifiable way forward. The solution does not require us to be part of nature, our urban societies will make that impossible. What we can do is value the resources we have. Yet, society makes almost no effort to connect our consumption with primary raw materials.

We are still obsessed with 'saving the planet' as our economies risk massive failure due to shortages of resources. The combination of climate change and resource scarcity will end up being a lethal cocktail.

To download a copy of Global Resources Outlook 2024, visit the International Resource Panel website.

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Ms Adrienna Zsakay is the founder and CEO of Circular Economy Asia Inc., and this article presents her opinions on the circular economy. Circular World? Video of the Week is brought to you by Circular World? Media — a brand owned by Circular Economy Asia Inc.

Resources

'When did we become fully human? What fossils and DNA tell us about the evolution of modern?intelligence' by Nicholas R. Longrich, Senior Lecturer in Evolutionary Biology and Paleontology, University of Bath, published in The Conversation, 09 September 2020.

'How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth?' by Toshiko Kaneda, Charlotte Greenbaum, and Carl Haub, 2022 World Population Data Sheet (Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau, 2022); United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World Population Prospects: The 2022 Revision (New York: United Nations, 2022); personal communication with Dudley L. Poston Jr., Professor of Sociology and the George T. and Gladys H. Abell Professor of Liberal Arts, Texas A&M University.? ?

'Man's Conquest of Nature' by Dr. F. Sherwood Taylor. (Life and Leisure Series, No. 5.) Pp. 116. (London: Paul Elek (Publishers), Ltd., 1948.