Resource Wars“so long as global competition for access to

vital materials continues, conflict over resources will remain a conspicuous feature

of the international security environment”Klare 2001

Name a war or conflict and link it to a resource

Let’s not forget, such concerns are nothing new….

Thomas Malthus

• 1766-1834. Born near Guildford, UK

• Wrote ‘An essay in the First Principle of population’ first published in 1798

• The world population in 1798 was at 790 million people. We have now passed the six billion mark.

and therefore he said….

War, famine, disease.

Malthusian Catastrophe

TIME

food population

The Club of Rome

• Group of industrialists, scientists, economists and statesmen from 10 countries

• Published ‘The Limits to Growth’ in 1972

The Club of Rome

But is it all doom and gloom?

Esther Boserup 1965• Boserup believed that people have

resources of knowledge and technology and that “necessity is the mother of invention”, thus as populations grow towards the carrying capacity they develop new ways to use resources (food) more productively.

• Can you think of real life examples?

Thus…….

• Demographic pressure (population density) promotes innovation and higher productivity in use of land (irrigation, weeding, crop intensification, better seeds) and labour (tools, better techniques).

Population and resource relationship after Boserup

The debate goes on…….

Ehrlich

• Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford University biologist, wrote his book The Population Bomb in 1968.

• In it he warned of doom and gloom - resource depletion, species extinction and a human population so large that as a species we would face mass poverty, famine, starvation and death.

• According to Ehrlich, the Earth had reached its carrying capacity long ago and we were living on borrowed time.

Simon

• Julian Simon, a University of Maryland economist, has written several books on population most famously The Ultimate Resource.

• Simon thought that all of the doom and gloom of Ehrlich was nothing but nonsense. He claimed that resources are infinite in the sense that human beings will never run out of them for whatever purpose they decide to use them for.

• Essentially, Simon considered humans to be the “ultimate resource”

A Continuum

Eco-centric Deep Ecologists (Doomsters) believe that rapid population growth and increased levels of development have led to a situation where there are insufficient resources and too much waste and pollution.

Techno-centric Cornucopians (Boomsters) champion the ability of

humans to innovate, develop and adapt, as the solution to the issues associated with population growth, resource consumption and waste?

POPULATION

DEVELOPMENTRESOURCES ?

Sustainability

Brundtland Commission

“Sustainable development is development which meets the needs of the present generation without compromising future generation’s ability to meet their needs.”

Our Common Future 1987

What factors are going to increase resource

competition in the future

“Natural resources are the building blocks of civilization and an essential requirement of daily

existence. The inhabitants of planet earth have been blessed with a vast supply of most basic materials.

But we are placing increased pressure on these supplies, and in some cases we face, in our lifetimes,

or those of our children, the prospect of severe resource depletion. If we rely on warfare to settle disputes over raw materials the human toll will be

great. To avoid this fate, and to ensure an adequate supply of essential materials, we must work now to establish a global system of resource conservation

and collaboration”

Klare 2001

Food as a Resource

Allemagne : $500.07

USA (Caroline du Nord ) : 346$

Japon : $317.25

Italie (Sicile) : $260.11

Une famille britannique : $253.15 / semaine

Koweit: $221.45

Mexique : $189.09

Chine : $155.06

Pologne : $151.27

Egypte : $68.53

Mongolie : $40.02

Equateur : $31.55

Tchad : $1,62 / semaine

there are 963 million hungry people in this world

(World Food Program)

there are more than 1 billion overweight people and at least 300 million of these are obese

World Health Organization