Running Out: How Global Shortages Change the Economic Paradigm - Couverture rigide

Rafael, Pablo Rafael

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0875864201 ISBN 13 : 9780875864204

Editeur : Algora Publishing, 2005

Synopsis

Early in the twenty-first century, a quiet crisis is unfolding beneath the surface of global economics. While governments and corporations project confidence in humanity’s future, geologists and energy experts are reaching a troubling consensus: the world’s oil reserves are depleting far faster than new discoveries can replenish them, and wars in the Middle East are not helping. Pablo Rafael Gonzalez’s Running Out cuts through the comfortable myths surrounding natural resource availability to examine a fundamental shift in economic reality.

This book challenges the traditional economic paradigm that has dominated since Adam Smith. For centuries, economists assumed capital was the scarce factor limiting production. But as the twenty-first century was dawning, even before the 2026 war on Iran, that assumption was crumbling. Natural resources—particularly water and conventional oil—have become the true constraint on human civilization. Gonzalez presents rigorous statistical evidence from the 1940s through 2000s demonstrating that oil production has consistently outpaced the discovery of new reserves, a trend with no historical parallel. Global fuel shortages loom.

The analysis extends far beyond petroleum. Gonzalez documents the extinction of species at alarming rates, the deforestation of critical ecosystems, the pollution of water sources, and the agricultural pressures threatening food security. He examines how these interconnected crises affect different regions: the Himalayan glaciers that feed Asia’s major rivers, the shrinking Caroni River threatening Venezuela’s hydroelectric capacity, and the Middle Eastern water conflicts already reshaping geopolitics.

The book systematically forecasts global oil demand through 2020, showing projected consumption increases of 53 percent. It traces the decline of major oil-producing nations, from the United States’ shift from exporter to importer, to the inevitable peak production moments approaching in the North Sea, Mexico, and Russia. Gonzalez applies King Hubbert’s geologically-grounded prediction methods to demonstrate when various regions will exhaust their reserves.

Rather than offering false optimism, Running Out presents the genuine choices facing humanity: rational conservation or continued reckless consumption. It examines whether alternative energy sources can realistically replace petroleum, analyzes the political and military consequences of resource scarcity, and questions whether full global employment remains achievable within ecological limits.

This is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the hidden economic forces reshaping our world—from policymakers and investors to concerned citizens wondering why mainstream media rarely discusses these critical trends. Gonzalez’s work provides the statistical foundation and historical context necessary to comprehend the resource crisis defining our era.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

A shocking worldwide scarcity of natural resources is about to shake the public from its complacent slumber as the inconvenience of higher gas prices, occasional brown-outs and seasonal water shortages quickly evolve into major, prolonged and widespread shortages of the most elementary commodities. The crisis is being accelerated by mankind’s heedless overexploitation and contamination of what’s left. Pablo Rafael Gonzalez documents the dire state of the earth’s reserves of oil, water and food, and the rapid extinction of plant and animal species, in 150 tables and graphs drawn largely from World Bank and UN reports. Gonzalez, a political analyst, has advised Venezuela’s President and Congress for 25 years on energy and resource issues. In this book he convincingly demonstrates that we are well on the way to exhausting both renewable and nonrenewable natural resources, even if we are in denial about it. This is an unprecedented and mind-boggling challenge for humanity. It also signals a change of the economic paradigm, the lens through which economic experts view the world. Capital, economists like to say, is the scarce factor of production; but starting in this century, it’s the scarcity of natural resources that will limit growth. It’s time we recognized that fact and dealt with it. Until now, it has been relatively easy to keep on expanding production as mankind conquered the globe, continually gaining access to rich “new” lands; and rapid population growth has meant there were generally enough hands to do the work. That halcyon era is coming to an end, and economists will have to shift their focus from problems of distribution to problems of resources. The evidence presented in these pages adds up to an urgent plea that governments and other policy-makers abandon some traditional economic ideas and invent radically new approaches in order to shape responsible policies. The tables and graphs make this book invaluable to students and professionals in the fields of history, political science, economics and environmental studies, as well as those involved in or preparing for careers in the geological and extractive industries. Natural resource reserves, production and consumption around the world over the last 100 years, and reductions in forested land, animals and plant species are also tabulated.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Algora Publishing
• Date d'édition: 2005
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0875864201
• ISBN 13: 9780875864204
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 234
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible