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C00002 00002	%bernst[w89,jmc]		Comments for Bernstam conference
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%bernst[w89,jmc]		Comments for Bernstam conference
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\title{Comments on papers by Singer, Lee and Falkenmark}

	As contributions to projecting the future or to determining
policy, all three papers suffer from the same weakness, insufficent
attention to the present and future state of technology.
As I finish these remarks I note another omission---politics.

	S. Fred Singer's ``The future of natural resources'' suffers
the least.

	Singer describes the fact that geologists and economists
have different views about resource shortages.  For example, the
geologists estimate how much more copper ore of currently minable
quality is yet to be found.  The economists point out that when
currently minable ore approaches exhaustion, lower grade ores
will be considered minable.  However, neither geologists nor the
economists address the question directly of what the actual costs
will be.

	This is a question for mining and refining technology.
Unfortunately for getting a definite answer, asking about mining
ores of lower grade than now mined is asking about the mining
technology of the future.  Singer points out that companies that
mine copper or pump oil are not motivated to spend money to
discover resources for more than ten to twenty years in the
future.  Likewise, they are not motivated to spend money to
develop technology to mine ores and extract minerals from them
for ores that won't be used for more than twenty years.

	In the case of copper, I think Singer and the economists
have a strong case, because we are talking only about a factor of
ten reduction in concentration before getting to ordinary rock
and can tolerate a much larger increase in price; a factor of 60
was mentioned.  Actually, I don't understand why a factor of 10
reduction in concentration should lead to a factor of 60 increase
in extraction cost.  Why wouldn't 10 be an upper bound?
The answer depends on a study of the technology.

	There is one reason for developing technology and
discovering resources much farther in advance of need.  Namely,
there is a vociferously expressed opinion, prominent in this
conference, that the technology cannot be developed and the
resources cannot be discovered.  From this point of view the
developed countries are using up the world's resources irrevocably
and the undeveloped world cannot hope to develop to present
advanced standards.  Those who believe that future technology
will match the progress of the past are not convinced.
The attempts to found pessimism on fundamental laws of physics,
e.g. the second law of thermodynamics, have been scientifically
mistaken.

	The pessimistic opinion might be ignored as such opinions
as Jevons's 19th century pessimism about British coal resources
were ignored at that time.  However, the pessimists demand policy
changes, especially reductions in standard of living, based on
their projections.  Moreover, the pessimism is used to justify
hostility to the developed countries as using up resources that
the undeveloped countries need.  If our optimism is based on a
correct understanding of technology and economics, the policy
changes will be harmful, and the hostility is unwarranted and
counter-productive.  It seems that many government officials in
many countries are impressed by the pessimism and are actually
making harmful policy decisions, though not as vigorously as the
pessimists demand.

	For this reason, considerable expenditures might be
justified to provide assurance that future low grade resources
can be discovered and extracted, i.e. expenditures that
companies cannot justify out of their own needs.  However,
it may be that the paper studies that have been made by
organizations like IIASA are adequate for reasonable people,
and the problem of reassurance is merely political.

	Energy is certainly the main area in which future
technological projections are important.  Fortunately, it is an
area in which the technological uncertainties are not very large.
As many countries are demonstrating, vigorous development of
conventional nuclear fission power plants can supply electricity
needs.  Moreover, almost all non-transportation energy needs can
be suplied electrically at costs that will not appreciably reduce
standards of living.  Only transportation remains, and a solution
to that problem can be postponed while the possibilities of
efficient electric batteries, liquid hydrogen and other
technologies that permit using electricity as the primary
energy source are explored.

	Lee's discussion of demographic projections is based on
the following.

{\narrower
	``We may divide the various approaches to population
forecasting into two categories: those that hypthesize levels
and changes in the vital rates without reference to the implied
changes in population size, and those that reason in terms of
the Earth's carrying capacity and the responsiveness of population
growth rates to feedback.  The first category, which contains many
highly developed methods, may be further divided into extrapolation
of trends, use of historical analogy, and insights from social
theory.  The second category is nearly empty.''}

	This doesn't mention technology, although it is hard to imagine
that humanity could have reached its present population without
modern technology.  Actually, technology is mentioned later in the
paper

	I have another reservation more directly related to the
demography.  While the differential population growth rates
among countries are discussed, there is no mention of differential
population growth rates within countries.  We know that different
groups within the U.S. have different growth rates.  If these
differentials are maintained, the eventual growth rate of the
population will be that of the subgroup with the highest growth
rate.  Is leaving this out a matter of social scientists' tact?

	Falkenmark's discussion also mentions technology only in
passing.  Her pessimism about technological fixes, amounting to
disdain, may be based on the post World War II history of the
undeveloped countries, especially countries in Africa.  Most of
the ambitious schemes proposed in the 1950s have not
materialized.  However, there is another important factor
scarcely mentioned---the disastrous politics of these countries,
most of which have become feudal military dictatorships, some
under slogans and policies of socialism.

	This illustrates the fact that successfully projecting
what populations different countries will be able to support in
the future may depend on projecting their politics as well as
their technology, mineral resources and demography.
Unfortunately, I don't know how to do that, and maybe nobody else
knows much about it either.  However, a look at the past tells us
that in both developed and undeveloped countries, politics has
affected the ability of countries to support their populations or
to control them.

	The effect of politics is not mainly expressed in the
nominal policies of the countries.  Rather it is expressed in
what groups in the population get power and how they use their
resulting control of resources.  Many countries have experienced
enormous growth of politically powerful completely unproductive
social groups, e.g.  military and bureaucratic.  The famines of
the postwar era have mostly involved countries experiencing wars,
both civil and foreign.  All this illustrates the importance of
politics.  Specifically, it illustrates the danger to population
of deviating from representative democracy.
\smallskip\centerline{Copyright \copyright\ 1989\ by John McCarthy}
\smallskip\noindent{This draft of BERNST[W89,JMC]\ TEXed on \jmcdate\ at \theTime}
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