Our Disappearing Resources

Greenboy has a good post on declining amounts of key resources. Not only our oil supplies drying up, but we are seeing rapidly depleted sources of iridium, hafnium, silver, tin, and uranium. All of these elements play key roles in producing products we use every day.

We of the developed world have lived like kings for decades. We haven't given a second thought to our footprint on the soil, where our computers and other consumer products come from, or how our consumption affects people around the world. Now, China, India, Brazil, Mexico, and other "developing nations" are demanding resource consumption on the same level as the United States, western Europe, and Japan. We can't supply those products. We're already seeing rising oil prices. Expect to witness huge increases in the prices of computers and many other products in the next twenty years, prices high enough to be a slug in the gut to world economies.

Every human-made thing you see around you comes from somewhere. Most of it goes through heavy industrial processes to get there. Look around carefully. You are the last generation to live at this level of luxury.