I don't think we have enough faith in technology to solve the earth's resource problems. Personally, I'm not very worried about the future of non-renewable resources, such as energy and fresh water. I think we'll find a way.
The problem is that we're convinced we know everything. So we evaluate our prospects for the future based on the present. But the future never turns out that way, and technology inevitably makes old paradigms obsolete while introducing game-changing solutions.
These solutions are almost always driven by economics. As resource supply is outpaced by demand, prices increase and investment in new technologies increases. Eventually, there's a breakthrough.
A few years ago natural gas sold at $9 a cubic thousand foot, and the experts believed it was a dwindling resource. A few smart companies started investing in horizontal drilling, which proved overwhelmingly successful. As a result, supply is way up and the price is down to $4. The same kind of thing may happen to oil, to a lesser degree, if we continue to improve the environmental safety of fracking in shale.
Fresh water is in the midst of a similar revolution. Besides continually improved water recycling methods--a number of US cities now use primarily recycled water--ocean water desalination is also progressing rapidly. There are over 15,000 desalination plants worldwide, producing 16 billion gallons of clean water daily.
All of these new technologies must be managed carefully. Most importantly, there are inevitable environmental issues that must be dealt with, and lessons are often learned at great cost. But the solutions will come. And society would be better served to spend its time developing these solutions than fretting that the sky is falling.
I would instead fret about preserving resources that are difficult or impossible to replace, such as clean air and waterways, or undeveloped wilderness. Unfortunately, these objectives are often in conflict with the aforementioned new technologies. Managing the one without sacrificing the other should be the object of society's, and government's, attention.
