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%bernst[w89,jmc]		Comments for Bernstam conference

	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.

	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, it is a question
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 unmoved.

	However, the pessimistic opinion calls for policy
changes, especially reductions in standard of living, based on
these pessimistic projections.  Moreover, the pessimism is used
to justify hostility to the developed countries as using up
resources that the undeveloped countries need.  If we optimists
are right, 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.

\narrow{
	``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?