Part 1: Natural Resources

Many of the key natural resources that humans depend on are running out, largely due to more people wanting more things.  There is less top soil, less fresh water, less arable land, less forest cover and less fish in the sea. Population size is the key deciding factor on the amount of resources that we use.  The world’s population jumped from 2 billion people in 1930 to over 7.7 billion in 2020, and the world’s middle class population tripled from 1.2 billion in 2000 to over 3.8 billion in 2018.

This part starts with Malthus Was Wrong. Is He Still Wrong? in which we explain why Malthus, writing in the late 1790s, got his predictions of widespread famine caused by population growth so badly wrong.  In Standing On The Shoulders Of Toddlers- Why We Have Never Grown Up And What This Means For Our Future we look at some of the fundamental issues that confront our planet and how we ignore them at great risk. In Feeding 9 Billion: Is It Possible? we ask a simple question about our ability to feed our ever increasing population and in Drying Up. What Happens To Farms If There Is No Water? we look at the shocking dependency of aquifer water, a non renewable resource, on food production.  In the next article, Why Land Deals In Africa Could Make The Great Irish Famine A Minor Event, we compare British policies in Ireland in the run up to the Great Irish Famine in 1845 to the purchases of land in Africa over the past decade. In Dealing With The Consequences Of Climate Chance Inaction: The Impact Of Food we look at the impact of climate change on global food dynamics, which will significantly affect world trade in food, requiring a higher level of national self sufficiency.   Sticking with food production, we then move on to Vertical Farming: the electrical convergence power, transport and agriculture and look at the way vertical farming could help to feed the world as costs drop thanks to improvements in renewable energy and battery technology.

We then shift focus to look at changes in energy markets in Who Are The Losers In The Energy Revolution?, Establishing A Price Floor For Energy and Big European utilities are facing an existential crisis. We finally look at The Renewables and Battery Revolution and how mobility, in the form of battery electric vehicles, and energy, in the form of battery back ups to renewable energy, are having a revolutionary impact on the energy industry.

We finish off by asking why conservatives are so suspicious of the environmental movement and climate change policies in Green Is Not Red, But Blue: Environmentalism And The Mystery Of Right Wing Opposition and Roots: A Historical Understanding Of Climate Change Denial, Creationism And Slavery – 1629-1775.  Finally, in Cassandra: Time To Give Up On Predicting Climate Change?  we look back at Cassandra, the daughter of King Priam of Troy, who had the gift of prophesy but was cursed by the god Apollo who ensured that none of her prophesies would be believed.