Global fight for natural resources 'has only just begun'

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/12/global-natural-resources-food-water


Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen told the conference that governments would need to step in, to ensure resources were best distributed. Photograph: Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images for ReSource 2012

The global battle for natural resources – from food and water to energy and precious metals – is only beginning, and will intensify to proportions that could mean enormous upheavals for every country, leading academics and business figures told a conference in Oxford on Thursday.

Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, who convened the two-day Resource 2012 conference, told the Guardian: "We are nowhere near realising the full impact of this yet. We have seen the first indications – rising food prices, pressure on water supplies, a land grab by some countries for mining rights and fertile agricultural land, and rising prices for energy and for key resources [such as] metals. But we need to do far more to deal with these problems before they become even more acute, and we are not doing enough yet."

Countries that are not prepared for this rapid change will soon – perhaps irrevocably – lose out, with serious damage to their economies and way of life, the conference was told.

Amartya Sen, a Nobel prize-winning economist, said that the free market would not necessarily provide the best solution to sharing out the world's resources. Governments would need to step in, he said, to ensure that people had access to the basics of life, and that the interests of businesses and the financial markets did not win out over more fundamental human needs.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

1. "government....ensure resources are best distributed"...

...in the U.S. that means our corporate-bought and controlled government wil ensure the resources are distributed to and controlled by big corporations. Little people pay (if they can even afford to), and big corp profits.

If you can't pay, drop dead. Just like - you know - "health care"

Call me a cynic...

[pscot]

2. Dogs fighting over a carcass

[Nihil]

3. Unrec

> Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen told the conference that governments
> would need to step in, to ensure resources were best distributed.

That sentence alone means that an unrec for this article is deserved.

Once you start bringing in David "Sell my soul" King and the concept of
"Nobel prize for economics" into the mix then the entire article should be
thrown into a pit, soaked in (corn) ethanol and ignited.

The quaint (if antiquated) idea that governments would act on behalf of the
people is a serious sign of insanity.