Global View
The prices of many goods have increased significantly over the last four years. Mining is driven by consumption, the desire of humans to produce buildings and roadways, plus the desire of individuals to buy stuff. As global consumption of basic commodities from copper to cement to iron increase, the price of new goods increase.
Graph showing the increase in non-fuel mineral materials. As you can see, the cost of stuff is continually increasing. (Figure: USGS.)
Every time you purchase a gizmo or gadget that is brand new, you are requiring more mineral resources to be mined. The purchase of a product leaves a path of pollution from cradle to grave. Mining causes pollution at the site, processing of the mineral resource causes pollution, turning the resource into a product causes pollution, and when you throw the item away, it pollutes. While environmentalists finger mining companies for causing these problems, the mining companies are only digging up the stuff because you demand to buy more gizmos that contain that stuff.
The mantra of environmentalists shouldn't be "stop buying" but to start "buy less and buy smarter." As we will learn in our consumption lecture, we often mindlessly buy material out of a sense of boredom or dissatisfaction, rather than out of a true need. In our landfill lecture, you will learn of the consequences of what happens when we throw these products "away."
While the world population continues to grow, so does the size of the middle class. China and India have enormous emergent middle classes. Within your lifetime the size of the middle class in China will become larger than the entire population of the U.S. These emergent middle classes want to be just like the U.S., and consume huge amounts of goods and services. Business and industry and many politicians claim "we'll never run out", which is true, it will just get too expensive for the lower and middle class to purchase.
What you will witness in your lifetime is demand from all these middle classes will drive up prices of mineral commodities (which you've already seen with the price of gas and steel) because there is a limited supply of these resources. Higher prices mean you can afford less stuff, or a so-called "lower standard of living" (which has nothing to do with happiness). In a few decades, 4,000 square foot houses, two large cars, and dozens of gizmos in each household will become increasingly difficult to afford.
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