In this volume, a group of distinguished international scholars provides a fresh investigation of the most fundamental issues involved in our dependence on natural resources. In Scarcity and Growth (RFF, 1963) and Scarcity and Growth Reconsidered (RFF, 1979), researchers considered the long-term implications of resource scarcity for economic growth and human well-being. Scarcity and Growth Revisited examines these implications with 25 years of new learning and experience. it finds that concerns about resource scarcity have changed in essential ways. In contrast with the earlier preoccupation with the adequacy of fuel, mineral, and agricultural resources and the efficiency by which they are allocated, the greatest concern today is about the Earth?s limited capacity to handle the environmental consequences of resource extraction and use. Opinion among scholars is divided on the ability of technological innovation to ameliorate this ‘new scarcity.’ However, even the book?s more optimistic authors agree that the problems will not be successfully overcome without significant advances in the legal, financial, and other social institutions that protect the environment and support technical innovation. Scarcity and Growth Revisited incorporates expert perspectives from the physical and life sciences, as well as economics. it includes issues confronting the developing world as well as industrialized societies. The book begins with a review of the debate about scarcity and economic growth and a review of current assessments of natural resource availability and consumption. The twelve chapters that follow provide an accessible, lively, and authoritative update to an enduring-but changing-debate. © 2005 by Resources for the Future.

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Scarcity and growth revisited: Natural resources and the environment in the new millennium

An exergy analysis of the Brazilian economy: From energy production to final energy use

On the efficiency of US electricity usage since 1900

Optimization of a fixed solar thermal collector

The case for global warming due to anthropogenic sources of greenhouse gases is compelling, but its quantitative effects are still scientifically unproven. Today, the U.S. primary metals industry’s carbon emissions account for slightly less than one percent of the global total. Further reductions are possible through the implementation of existing energy conservation measures, through more extensive recycling, and by the development and implementation of alternative processing technologies.

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L. Levison

Papers

Patterns of energy consumption in the United States