Limited resources and economic growth

[Crezth]

Infinite GDP is easy. Take three people. Person A pays 1$ to person B (for some nebulous service like a "credit default swap" or "extended warranty) , B pays that 1$ to C, and then C pays it back a A. Then make them do it again, but faster. You could automate the process by computer, swapping the dollar around and around faster and faster, and their GDP will grow to infinity.

Meanwhile, someone who's living independently and self sufficient without trade has a GDP of... zero.

GDP is a pretty silly way to measure human welfare, when you really stop to think about it.

This is absolutely the case, especially when one considers that about one in three Americans is at or below the poverty line right now.

Priority reevaluation is a must.

 

[downtown]

That isn't true. 1 in 3 americans is at, below, or NEAR the poverty line. I think it's one in 5 americans who are at or below the poverty line.

 

[El_Machinae]

That does not appear to be true. Agricultural production has been increasingly steadily since the first Industrial Revolution. When is this doom coming?

Your two points don't follow. Yes, agricultural production has been increasing, but the majority of the inputs into agricultural production are either nonrenewable or being consumed at nonsustainable rates. A lot of the increase in production has been due to increasing the flow of nonsustainable inputs.

Additionally, if the 'doom' is only recognised after some type of horrendous peak food situation (which seems to be what you're asking for), it's entirely the wrong metric.

 

[luiz]

Countries that can do this, will. The way nuclear weapons work in the world is a good model for how rare resources will be monopolized by the most powerful. Oil d does not work this way now because, frankly, most of the countries with it cannot refuse to trade it. In most of the gulf states, trading oil to the powerful in the is their raison d'etre and they wouldn't exist if they didn't.

I'm not sure nuclear weapons are a really good example of a rare resource, as technically any reasonably big country could make many of them. And their monopoly by a handfull of great powers is certainly a thing of the past: think India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. And in a few years, probably Iran. And of course there the countries that probably have "shovel-ready" nuke capacity such as Japan and South Korea (and less probably, Brazil and South Africa).

These are short-term trends. Growing middle classes now are trading off their own future, exhaustible resources, and they are often growing at the expense of other the poorer in their own countries and the middle classes of other countries.

Short term trend since the 1960's? That's when Latin America and East Asia begun to industrialize, and the trend has only intensified (in East Asia anyway). Some countries actually made the leap from poor recipients of foreign aid to rich highly prosperous societies, such as Taiwan and South Korea.

The recent developments in China have also been nothing short of spectacular, with tens if not hundreds of millions of people lifted out from poverty. This in a country where millions starved to death just some decades ago.

I don't know why it's so hard for some people to accept that the world is getting much better for most people, and fast.

We have made great advances in medicine there is no denying it. This however can also propagate poverty by fighting off natural checks on population growth leaving huge populations horribly exposed to genocide and famine. The coming century will be a golden age of these two I fear.

But at the same time that we had those unprecendented advances in medicine, which made life better for billions of peope, we also have a global per capita income that has never been higher, a middle class that has never been larger and, as a percent of the general population, the smallest amount of people facing famine since this sort of data became available.

Humans were healthiest before the neolithic revolution, and today most of us are less healthy and probably living shorter average lives (ignoring accidents and warfare). Industrial workers and urban dwellers are also less healthy than pre-industrial farmers, the vast majority of the world's population before the 1960s.

The life expectancy for the average human is nearly 70 years. Before the neolithic it was what, 35 years? 45 maybe?

What about victims of violence? Someone once started a thread here demonstrating that presently the average human is less likely to die a violent death than at any other point in history. And that's rather obvious if you think about it.

Yes, there is much room for improvement in living standards all over the world. But the US middle class is at the top of a trading pyramid that brings an unimaginable number of goods from all over the world to the US for almost nothing. Sharing that will mean thinning it and making these goods more expensive. And I'm afraid I don't share your belief that Westerners will just sit around and allow their economic domination to vanish, bringing them into poverty. The current economic system in the world is designed to transfer wealth from the third world to the first world. If it stops doing that then, one way or another, it will be abandoned.

There's no need for them to get poorer in order for the third world to get richer. Until recently the US was getting richer at the same time that the third world was getting richer (of course the third world has been growing faster). The US and the rest of the rich world will benefit from a larger and wealthier market for their products, and from all the vast investment opportunities opening up.

Don't be so pessimistic man, it's not warranted by facts!

 

[Crezth]

That isn't true. 1 in 3 americans is at, below, or NEAR the poverty line. I think it's one in 5 americans who are at or below the poverty line.

Okay, thank you. I can't find the link I used but it's something like 33% are just barely above or otherwise below the poverty line.

Still absurd.

 

[Narz]

Perhaps because a McMansioncedesyachtcrap is 1/20 the price of the Great Wall of Narz?

Hanging Gardens of Narz!

Anyway, it wouldn't be that expensive. I'd get a bunch of wet behind the ears hippie kids to do all the work for next to nothing (free ideally).

luiz, will read & reply to your post shortly, gotta step out for awhile.

 

[Pangur Bán]

I'm not sure nuclear weapons are a really good example of a rare resource, as technically any reasonably big country could make many of them. And their monopoly by a handfull of great powers is certainly a thing of the past: think India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. And in a few years, probably Iran. And of course there the countries that probably have "shovel-ready" nuke capacity such as Japan and South Korea (and less probably, Brazil and South Africa).

This is illegal in "international law", and it's not the point anyway, it's about how the big powers try to manage resource availability. They have been very successful as things go.

Short term trend since the 1960's? That's when Latin America and East Asia begun to industrialize, and the trend has only intensified (in East Asia anyway). Some countries actually made the leap from poor recipients of foreign aid to rich highly prosperous societies, such as Taiwan and South Korea.

That's when the stats you posted started. You were presenting them as part of general long-term trend towards improvements, when actually these stats start from a base much lower than earlier decades. I.e. the trend is short-term and there is no reason to think it will continue longer-term.

The recent developments in China have also been nothing short of spectacular, with tens if not hundreds of millions of people lifted out from poverty. This in a country where millions starved to death just some decades ago.

Moving from a healthy farm life to disease-ridden squalor is not coming "out of poverty". It's sheer nonsense to talk about wealth versus poverty when such things are being compared.

But at the same time that we had those unprecendented advances in medicine, which made life better for billions of peope, we also have a global per capita income that has never been higher, a middle class that has never been larger and, as a percent of the general population, the smallest amount of people facing famine since this sort of data became available.

Yeah, but this is wrong. More people are at risk from famine than ever in recorded history. Famine is not just a state of being, it is a catastrophe that happens when people push the edge of the bread line and expose themselves to higher risks from sudden changes of food availability (caused by things like over reliance on one crop, soil erosion, and so on).

The life expectancy for the average human is nearly 70 years. Before the neolithic it was what, 35 years? 45 maybe?

Almost certainly longer, discarding accident, warfare and complications in childbirth; certainly more than people in the modern Third World, which is what we are talking about. Most modern health problems post-date the neolithic revolution or are caused by it.

There's no need for them to get poorer in order for the third world to get richer. Until recently the US was getting richer at the same time that the third world was getting richer (of course the third world has been growing faster). The US and the rest of the rich world will benefit from a larger and wealthier market for their products, and from all the vast investment opportunities opening up.

Their "products"? You're imagining that the relative "value" of American products will remain similar as more and more countries around the world make the same things and consume more of them. That's just not how it works. Anyway, American/Western products are not even the source of their wealth; the source of their wealth is their relationships with poorer countries.

 

[Tani Coyote]

If vertical farms are so efficient why aren't people doing it already?

Politics, I imagine. If we build vertical farms, all the agricultural states go bust. Why? Because vertical farms are built near city centers based on all plans; this reduces pollution enormously and allows goods to be sent to the market in record time. The cost is all those small farm towns evaporate, and if you've ever tried cutting agricultural subsidies, you know how much of a beast farms can be politically.

Vertical farms allow year round growth since they're insulated and free from the seasons. Pests become virtually non-existent due to the contained environment. Some even come equipped with solar panels and whatnot to assist in energy production.

Then there's just simple cost: not many people have it high on their priority list to build a several stories high farm on the edge of town. Given that most of the technologies proposed aren't anything revolutionary, I doubt cost is really prohibitive, anymore than an ordinary skyscraper would be.

Also, there's NIMBY rearing its ugly head since we all feel sunshine is a right and not a privilege.

 

[Narz]

The improvement was actually quite impressive, especially if you look at the state of the art. A Ford T would do 13 mpg, and reach a top speed of 40 mph. A Chevy Volt does 36 mpg and reaches 100 mph. That's a lot of extra "bang for the oil liter".

So an improvement of less than 3-fold over a hundred years. Now that impressive (I imagine if one is doing 100 the efficiency goes way down also).

That does not appear to be true. Agricultural production has been increasingly steadily since the first Industrial Revolution. When is this doom coming?

Production is being increased but at the expense of the long term viability of the soil. It can't be increased indefinitely.

http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0417-dirt.html

But if we consider the simple formula "Returns Achieved / Resources Used" we see a constant upwards trend. That's the bottom line here.

No, the bottom line is that efficiency doesn't matter if way more people are using way more resources. It's more eco-friendly to live in a one room shack with an incandescent bulb than a 4-bedroom house with a bunch of fluorescent bulbs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

Theoretically, the giant solar pannels could deliver many thousand times the amount of energy we get from burning oil. Remember, the amount of solar energy that reaches the Earth surface is equivalent to 15,000 times all our present energy needs. And that's accounting for the losses due to the atmosphere.

Theoretically relying on super abundant solar panels is a pretty cool idea too. The actual efficiency of converting solar energy to usable electricity is pretty small right now though.

Also, note that we will never have to rely entirely on solar energy. The hydro and nuclear power we currently get will continue to be here, and will in fact increase.

That is true. That wonder I have is how we can continue driving so much. The grid currently couldn't handle even a small percentage of cars being put on it.

I am not in this thread arguing at all about whether the market will deal appropriately with scarce resources. My point is that resource scarcity pose no technical limit to our continued economic development. A marxist can agree with me here.

lol, I wouldn't call myself a Marxist. Theoretically perhaps economic development of some sort could continue for some time though ideally eventually life would reach an ideal where a steady state could be reached. Ideally (and inevitably) this state would be a society which valued sustainability & frowned upon consumerism & our current "collect 'em all" culture I think is already showing itself to be unsustainable even environmental issues aside.

I will say though, despite the risk of threadjackin my own thread, that I find the market's quick responses to increased price of any depleting resource to be the most effective way to channel funds to researching alternatives. While not omniscient by any stretch, the market has consistently beaten governments and experts when it comes to this sort of forecast.

I figure we know non-renewables are eventually going to become cost-prohibitive, why not stay ahead of the game instead of letting energy monoliths be able to dominate us when we become vulnerable.

I didn't say it was right around the corner. I said I expect fusion to be viable at some point in this century, probably in the second half. IIRC the next large scale test reactor will only be in operation in the early 2030's. This sort of thig takes time. Luckily, though, we are currently capable of supplying increased energy needs for the next decades.

Time will tell. There are a lot of people & groups who fear otherwise though.

http://www.consumerenergyreport.com...y-peak-oil-warns-severe-global-energy-crisis/

Personally I think it couldn't hurt to get more prepared now & have governments encourage such pragmatic planning.

 

[Narz]

Politics, I imagine. If we build vertical farms, all the agricultural states go bust. Why? Because vertical farms are built near city centers based on all plans; this reduces pollution enormously and allows goods to be sent to the market in record time. The cost is all those small farm towns evaporate, and if you've ever tried cutting agricultural subsidies, you know how much of a beast farms can be politically.

Vertical farms allow year round growth since they're insulated and free from the seasons. Pests become virtually non-existent due to the contained environment. Some even come equipped with solar panels and whatnot to assist in energy production.

Then there's just simple cost: not many people have it high on their priority list to build a several stories high farm on the edge of town. Given that most of the technologies proposed aren't anything revolutionary, I doubt cost is really prohibitive, anymore than an ordinary skyscraper would be.

Also, there's NIMBY rearing its ugly head since we all feel sunshine is a right and not a privilege.

So have they ever been implemented successfully anywhere & studied/compared to traditional farms.

They'll always be the seasons but I suppose the farms could be refitted in the wintertime to take advantage of the slant of the winter sun. Still couldn't grow tomatoes probably as the amount of daylight is too little in most places.

 

[innonimatu]

Then there's just simple cost: not many people have it high on their priority list to build a several stories high farm on the edge of town. Given that most of the technologies proposed aren't anything revolutionary, I doubt cost is really prohibitive, anymore than an ordinary skyscraper would be.

Also, there's NIMBY rearing its ugly head since we all feel sunshine is a right and not a privilege.

Vertical farms would be far more expensive than the regular ones, that's the simple answer. If they weren't they'd already been build in place of the regular farms. It's a silly idea, always was. It depends on inputs which would have to come from somewhere else, thus resulting in greater resource costs. There is no way around that. Namely, the obvious one: energy, solar light. Who the hell was so idiot as to come up with the idea of stacking farms?

Of course, iff we had free energy they'd make sense.

 

[Tani Coyote]

I agree, solar energy and nuclear power and whatnot are all too expensive as well, let's shelve them!

"It's too expensive" is an excuse used by conservative politicians to avoid funding research; that is ridiculous, because with research, things become less expensive. Once upon a time, computers were something only the super wealthy could ever dream of having.

But lo and behold, we are arguing by using them through the internet. Research and development is the key.

Research clearly needs to be done in more efficient lighting, that could simulate the Sun's rays and warmth. Sounds like a momentous task, sure, but, so was every other scientific pursuit man has taken.

 

[Gatsby]

I think it's a good idea to discuss this topic since it is frequently argued in this forum, by people of the most diverse political inclinations, that the objective fact that physical resources are limited means there is a real constraint on how much the global economy can grow. People who believe in this usually conclude that for one group nations to be rich another must be poor; as the pie is limited we must fight for its slices. I'd like to hear a more qualified explanation of why it is so in their opinion.

Here's my take:
While resources are obviously limited, what we can do with them is not. One liter of oil will get us much further in 2011 than 1920; one acre of land will produce much more food. The return we get from a fixed amount of resources is always growing as our technical progress advances. This is point number one.

Point number two is that we're not even close to fully utilizing all resources at our disposal, and won't be as far as imaginable. We're only using a negligible amount of the total solar energy that hits the Earth (because today it's cheaper to burn oil); but no doubt in the future we could have giant orbiting solar pannels. The potential of fusion power hasn't been tapped yet, but I have no doubt it will at some point in this century. We're quickly heading to a world where most people will live as the western middle class does.

So there's no reason why we can't go on growing our economies for as long as we can imagine. Note that I am not offering any original or insightful thought here; I am merely stating the mainstream opinion.

Now it's time for those who disagree with me say where they think I went wrong.

Do the Math is a blog which does a great job of addressing the points you raise.

Regarding your first point, what we can do with resources ultimately is limited. Read the blog to get an idea of why. For example, there are thermodynamic limits to how energy efficient you can get. The improvement in efficiency of oil use in motors is possible because we resort to technologies that require ever-increasing amounts of other finite resources (e.g. rare-earth metals used to make hybrid cars). As for increases in land productivity, much of that is due to increased use of non-renewable resources like oil and natural gas to enhance farm productivity in various ways, and abusing land through profitable but unsustainable farming practices which deplete topsoil, deplete water supplies, and cause erosion: we might increase farm yields in the shorter term but we are drawing down our natural capital in the process, much like a person with no income living off their limited savings. The return from a fixed amount of resources may appear to have grown along with technical progress in the past, but that does not guarantee that it will continue to grow indefinitely into the future. A bubble is at its largest and most impressive right before it bursts.

Your second point is also addressed by the blog. The laws of economics compel people to utilise the highest-return supplies of a resource first ("pick the low-hanging fruit") and then utilise progressively lower-return supplies of that resource. This is the main reason why the vast majority of our energy still comes from fossil fuels - of all energy sources, they require the least energy and cost to utilise relative to the energy (and versatility of use) that we can get out of them. Theoretically you could utilise a great deal more of the solar energy that hits Earth, but what would be involved in such an excercise? We would have to build an *enormous* amount of solar collectors -and launch them all into space! - using a range of finite resources of diminishing availability and quality, we would have to build a similarly enormous amount of infrastructure to store all this energy, and we would have to continually maintain all of this infrastructure. This would involve enormous financial and opportunity costs, and it would most likely be beyond the capability of private business or any government subject to periodic elections. Then you have to deal with the facts that 1) the electricity from solar collectors is not going to be very amenable to some very important uses such as air and automobile transportation, and 2) the transmission losses of energy beamed from solar collectors in space would be significant. It is therefore not surprising that no one is even seriously considering doing something like this any time in the forseeable future.

What makes you think that fusion can be tapped in a commercially viable way at all? So far the only environment we know of where truly self-sustaining fusion reactions occur is in stars with enormous mass and gravity. Given all the limits to growth we are beginning to run into at full speed, it is more likely that the western middle class is heading to a world where it lives as the rest of humanity does.

 

[warpus]

Your second point is also addressed by the blog. The laws of economics compel people to utilise the highest-return supplies of a resource first ("pick the low-hanging fruit") and then utilise progressively lower-return supplies of that resource. This is the main reason why the vast majority of our energy still comes from fossil fuels - of all energy sources, they require the least energy and cost to utilise relative to the energy (and versatility of use) that we can get out of them.

The problem, as I see it, is that we're used to oil as an energy source now; our entire civilization is sort of built around it.

So that jump to the "next branch" is going to be that much harder. You could argue that we've started the slow process of making our way towards it, but.. how far are we along, really?

And knowing human nature, we are going to stick to oil for as long as we can, making the move up the next branch only when we have to. Is it going to be a smooth transition?

 

[Gatsby]

The problem, as I see it, is that we're used to oil as an energy source now; our entire civilization is sort of built around it.

So that jump to the "next branch" is going to be that much harder. You could argue that we've started the slow process of making our way towards it, but.. how far are we along, really?

And knowing human nature, we are going to stick to oil for as long as we can, making the move up the next branch only when we have to. Is it going to be a smooth transition?

Yes modern civilization is definitely built around oil, and fossil fuels more generally. It is also worth remembering that previous "jumps" to more powerful sources of energy in the past (e.g. wind and water to coal, coal to oil) did *not* result in substantial replacement of the earlier energy source with its more powerful successor: instead, it meant that we still used as much of the former energy source as before in addition to increasingly relying on the newer energy source to satisfy our growing energy demand. This means that even if a newer better energy source appears, it will have to work extra hard to both satisfy growing energy demand and make up for the decline in energy coming from dwindling fossil fuel reserves.

A case could be made that the next energy jump was supposed to be the jump from oil to nuclear fission in the latter half of the 20th century. This jump never actually happened though, because nuclear fission proved to be too costly and dangerous to overtake oil and other fossil fuels as our main energy source.

The question of whether the transition from oil is going to be smooth seems to be predicated on the assumption that there is something else to transition to. However it looks like the bridge ahead is out, so the next transition may not be to a newer more powerful energy source but to a significantly lower-energy way of life.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Wouldn't at the very least, until the development of interplanetary travel, we be limited to 1.74×10^17W?

 

[Narz]

The question of whether the transition from oil is going to be smooth seems to be predicated on the assumption that there is something else to transition to. However it looks like the bridge ahead is out, so the next transition may not be to a newer more powerful energy source but to a significantly lower-energy way of life.

That's where the smart money is.

Good post overall.

 

[warpus]

The question of whether the transition from oil is going to be smooth seems to be predicated on the assumption that there is something else to transition to. However it looks like the bridge ahead is out, so the next transition may not be to a newer more powerful energy source but to a significantly lower-energy way of life.

A significantly lower energy way of life overall, but it's not going to be easy to convince the pampered princesses who live in the west to give up their ipods and SUVs. (The pampered princesses would be us, by the way )

I mean, this is going to be a gradual process, yes? I suppose it'll mean that energy prices are going to continue to go up, so yeah, over time we are going to HAVE to live simpler. But people are going to get mad. They're going to complain to the politicians, who are going to start wars. After all, the middle classes of all the other countries are going to be complaining too.. including all of the developing economies, like China.

I don't think it's going to be an easy transition, no matter what. We know what we like, here in the west.. especially the U.S. We're not giving up our luxuries without a fight. I sense unrest in the near future unless we figure out how to run our cars on poop.

 

[Yeekim]

I sense unrest in the near future unless we figure out how to run our cars on poop.

What do you mean "in the near future"? Whaddayathink is happening right now?

 

[Winner]

I think it's a good idea to discuss this topic since it is frequently argued in this forum, by people of the most diverse political inclinations, that the objective fact that physical resources are limited means there is a real constraint on how much the global economy can grow. People who believe in this usually conclude that for one group nations to be rich another must be poor; as the pie is limited we must fight for its slices. I'd like to hear a more qualified explanation of why it is so in their opinion.

That is the extremist/nationalist position.

Here's my take:
While resources are obviously limited, what we can do with them is not. One liter of oil will get us much further in 2011 than 1920; one acre of land will produce much more food. The return we get from a fixed amount of resources is always growing as our technical progress advances. This is point number one.

But this is fundamentally flawed notion in that it is only true to a certain extent. Yes, we can grow more food on one square kilometre of land and our cars are more fuel-efficient today than they were 50 years ago (some of them, anyway). But there are physical limits to this. Technology can only get you so far; you can't really expect that one day you'll have a car that will run for 100 kilometres on 1 tiny drop of petrol or that you'd be able to feed a whole country from a square kilometre of farmland.

The consequences are obvious and profound. Resources, especially the non-renewable ones, cannot be wasted and they cannot be overexploited forever.

Point number two is that we're not even close to fully utilizing all resources at our disposal, and won't be as far as imaginable. We're only using a negligible amount of the total solar energy that hits the Earth (because today it's cheaper to burn oil); but no doubt in the future we could have giant orbiting solar pannels. The potential of fusion power hasn't been tapped yet, but I have no doubt it will at some point in this century. We're quickly heading to a world where most people will live as the western middle class does.

It's not energy what's bothering me (and we are getting close to full utilization of Earth's photosynthetic capacity). It's other critical resources that are not easily replaceable, especially not in technologically backwards parts of the world (where 4/5ths of the world population actually live).

Also, a conservative estimate of a total increase in consumption of resources that would result if the whole of today's Earth population suddenly achieved first world living standards is 11-fold. We'd need 11 times more of everything: oil, energy, metals, wood, food, fresh water, etc. etc. etc. Seeing that many societies across the globe are already suffering from severe shortages of some of these essentials, I would really like if you could tell me from where are these resources going to come from. Especially since the population doesn't seem to be about to stop growing anytime soon.

Take fresh water as an example:

Water: huge deficit in the making

"Is there enough land, water, and human capacity to produce food for a growing population over the next 50 years?" - ask concerned scientists of IWMI (International Water Management Institute).

Maybe so, but if the current food production and environmental trends are not altered, many parts of the world will face a crisis. Water is the crux. Three quarters of the planet's population, according to estimates by the United Nations, may experience water shortage by 2050.

Reserves are scarce

• Available data deliver quite a sobering message. Today's water consumption trends must be checked, lest we should take the world to the brink of chaos.
• Known reserves of exploitable freshwater are estimated at 1,560 billion cubic meters (see Fig. 1). In fact, they might even shrink, as an effect of the earth's climate change. Approximately by 1990, freshwater use reached that level.
• Since 1990, use of water continued its unrestrained ascension, far exceeding the reserves. By 2006, total global freshwater withdrawals were estimated at 3,800 billion cubic meters, 2,700 billion cubic meters (or 70%) being used by agriculture, 20% by industry, and 10% by municipalities.
• Our areppim's forecast based on FAO's (Food and Agriculture Organisation) actual data for the period 1977 – 2002, shows that water usage may go through the roof after 2010, dramatically deepening the global freshwater deficit.
• Even if we succeed to freeze water consumption at the 2002 level of 617 cubic meters per person, the deficit will grow deeper, although at a slower rate, by the sheer effect of population growth.

The bottom line is that lukewarm actions won't do. Radical steps must be taken to simultaneously save, better manage, recycle, and wherever possible increase reserves of water.

The deficit makers

The principal culprits of the current deficit are agriculture and production of food. To produce enough food to satisfy a person’s daily dietary needs takes about 3,000 litres of water, about 1 litre per calorie. As a yardstick, only about 2 litres of water are required for drinking. This sector underwent significant changes in the last fifty years:

• Twice as many people today,
• Populations are significantly wealthier,
• They eat many more calories,
• Meat ceased to be a rare luxury,
• Modern agriculture uses unsparingly fertilizers and pesticides that contaminate underground waters.

Industry is also responsible:

• The craving for energy puts a burden on water usage (as vapour to drive power generating turbines, also as a coolant in power plants), and water sharing (dams retaining water that does not reach the river basin),
• Production of fibbers for clothing and lately the production of biomass for fuel substitutes place heavy stress on water.
• Releases of industrial pollutants are a constant source of contamination.

Lastly, the growing numbers of middle-class people worldwide, the strong urbanisation and other social and civilisation changes compound the water balance-sheet problem:
Green lawns and glittering swimming pools pepper today's urban landscape,
Modern homes lavishly consume water in bathrooms, toilets, washing machines, decorative ponds, and the like,
Faulty municipal waste disposal systems are another important source of water contamination.

The impact of affluent people's lifestyles on global water consumption is obvious (see Fig.2). The volume of water withdrawal used by person of North America is 2.7 times as high as the world average, and 6.4 times as high as Africa's.
The threat

Today, more than 1.2 billion, a fifth of the world’s people, live in areas where water available cannot actually meet everyone’s demands. About 1.6 billion people live in water-scarce basins, where human capacity or financial resources are likely to be insufficient to develop adequate water resources.

The combined consequences of growing demand, driven by more affluence, growing population and lifestyle habits, on one hand, and of diminishing reserves, driven by climate changes, aridity, coastal influxes of saltwater and ineffective water management (e.g. leaky water-delivery systems, open-air irrigation canals allowing high evaporation, depletion of used waters also known as "grey water"), on the other hand, may prove unaffordable.

The reader's imagination can easily fill the canvas with the pictures of starvation, disease, social unrest, political instability, warfare that such a situation may generate.