Non-renewable resources 1

Will we run out?

Content

TBD.

Transcript

Appendix

Learning objectives

After this chapter, you should be able to:

  • Distinguish renewable and nonrenewable resources in stock–flow terms.
  • Explain why many resource problems are fundamentally dynamic.
  • Describe how extraction today alters options tomorrow.
  • Use simple intuition to explain overharvest and depletion.
  • Explain how Earth–economy models represent natural resources as assets that evolve over time.

From “things” to “stocks that change”

Natural resources are often discussed as if they were:

  • piles of timber,
  • barrels of oil,
  • tons of fish.

In Earth–economy thinking, they are:

Stocks that evolve through time under human pressure and natural regeneration.

A forest is not just “wood.”
It is a living system that:

  • grows,
  • stores carbon,
  • supports species,
  • regulates water,
  • and can be degraded or restored.

A fishery is not “fish on ice.”
It is a population with:

  • birth,
  • growth,
  • and mortality.

A groundwater basin is not “water in a tank.”
It is a stock that:

  • recharges slowly,
  • interacts with surface water,
  • and can be irreversibly damaged.

Sustainability is about how we manage these trajectories, not just today’s harvest.

Renewable vs nonrenewable resources

Renewable resources

Examples: - forests, - fisheries, - soils, - freshwater, - wildlife populations.

They have:

  • a natural regeneration process,
  • an upper bound (carrying capacity),
  • and thresholds beyond which recovery slows or fails.

Key tension:

Harvest faster than regeneration, and the stock shrinks.

Sustainable use means:

  • aligning extraction with long-run regenerative capacity,
  • accounting for ecological feedbacks and thresholds.

Nonrenewable resources

Examples: - fossil fuels, - minerals, - some groundwater aquifers.

They have:

  • no meaningful regeneration on human timescales.

Extraction is pure depletion.

The sustainability question becomes:

  • Are we converting these assets into other forms of capital fast enough?

Using oil is not automatically unsustainable—
using it without building human and produced capital is.

Why static thinking fails

A “static” view asks:

  • What is the best outcome this year?

A dynamic view asks:

  • What path leaves us better off over time?

Static thinking can justify:

  • high harvest rates,
  • rapid extraction,
  • short-run profit maximization.

Dynamic thinking reveals:

  • collapse risks,
  • lost future income,
  • reduced resilience.

The famous fisheries collapse stories are not failures of biology.
They are failures of dynamic economic reasoning.

A simple stock logic

Let:

  • S = size of the resource stock,
  • G(S) = natural growth,
  • H = harvest.

The stock next period is:

S_next = S + G(S) - H

You do not need calculus to see the logic:

  • If H > G(S), the stock declines.
  • If H < G(S), the stock grows.
  • If H = G(S), the stock is stable.

Policy is about controlling H and influencing G(S).

Earth–economy models implement this logic across:

  • forests,
  • fisheries,
  • soils,
  • carbon,
  • water.

They then connect S to:

  • yields,
  • prices,
  • livelihoods,
  • and ecosystem services.

The economics of overuse

Why do societies overharvest?

Because:

  • benefits are immediate and private,
  • costs are delayed and shared,
  • future users have no voice.

In open-access systems:

  • each user races to extract before others do.

In weakly regulated systems:

  • short-run profit dominates long-run value.

The result is often:

Harvest paths that look “efficient” in the short run
and catastrophic in the long run.

Dynamic inefficiency is the core of many resource crises.

Natural capital inside Earth–economy models

Earth–economy models treat resources as:

  • state variables,
  • governed by ecological dynamics,
  • linked to economic behavior.

For example:

  • Forest area affects:
    • timber supply,
    • carbon stocks,
    • habitat,
    • water regulation.
  • These affect:
    • prices,
    • land-use decisions,
    • incomes,
    • and future forest change.

Policy enters by:

  • setting harvest limits,
  • protecting areas,
  • altering prices,
  • or changing technology.

The model then shows:

  • how stocks evolve,
  • how economies respond,
  • and how wealth changes.

Natural resources become part of the asset portfolio.

The Doughnut perspective

Overharvest pushes societies:

  • beyond ecological ceilings (depletion, collapse),
  • and often below social foundations (lost livelihoods, food insecurity).

Underinvestment in regeneration:

  • may raise income today,
  • while hollowing out tomorrow.

Dynamic resource economics asks:

Are we converting nature into durable capacity—or liquidating it?

That question is at the heart of sustainability.

Open resources you can remix for this chapter

All are compatible with a CC BY-NC-SA Quarto book.

  • Natural Resources Sustainability: An Introductory Synthesis (CC BY-NC-SA)
    Use for: renewable vs nonrenewable resources, sustainability.
    https://uen.pressbooks.pub/naturalresourcessustainability/

  • Principles of Economics (UMN Libraries Publishing, CC BY-NC-SA)
    Use for: intertemporal choice and capital logic.
    https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/principles-of-economics

  • InTeGrate teaching materials (many CC BY-NC-SA)
    Use for: fisheries, forests, water, and soils activities.
    https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_materials/index.html

Exercises

  1. Stock–flow classification.
    For each, identify the stock and the flow:

    • a fishery,
    • a forest,
    • a groundwater basin,
    • a soil system.

  2. Dynamic intuition.
    Explain why a harvest rate that looks profitable today can be harmful over time.

  3. Policy design.
    Choose one resource (fish, forest, water).
    Propose one rule that could align harvest with regeneration.

Chapter roadmap

  • Next, we turn from dynamics to institutions.
  • You will see how property rights, rules, and governance determine whether stocks are sustained or destroyed.
  • This completes the bridge from natural capital to political economy.