3. Economy and Natural Resources

Mother Nature has provided humans with bountiful resources to thrive on. However, in several years time, scientist and geologist have predicted that humans may run out off critical non-renewable resources especially fossil fuel such as coal, oil and gas. To make matters worse, renewable resources such as the forest his also diminishing because they are over-harvested or consumed at a rate higher then they can replenish themselves and the standing stock eventually run out. Undeniably, the environment can fufill humans' needs but not humans' greed.

Since the advent of the industrial revolution, the worldwide energy consumption has been growing steadily and is not showing any signs of decreasing. Realising that natural resources may be depleted in the nearby future and since it is not possible to reduce energy consumption as the world population gets bigger, many developed countries have sought to find alternatives to unrenewable natural resources. By using technology and innovation, people have manage to harness the power of the sun, wind, wave, earth(geothermal) and even from biological waste( biomass). Solar power is getting very popular especially among countries in the tropics where the weather is mostly sunny all the time. Ironically, global warming is another reason why solar power is the most popular alternative for fossil fuels apart from nuclear. Portugal, one of the sunniest place in the world has built the world's largest solar powerplant capable of powering 8000 homes! However, Japan and Germany is the are the largest consumer of solar energy while Denmark the wind energy. Brazil, interestingly, invest in ethanol production from sugarcanes as a new energy resource while Mexico is trying to extract ethanol from corn.

In recent years, the depletion of natural resources is due to poor planning and management of the natural resources especially among the underdeveloped and fast-developing countries. A nation's amount of resources will usually determine the nation's wealth and status in the world economy system and indirectly its political influence. For example, Brunei is a country where its citizens enjoy a high income and quality life because of its oil and gas industry. However, anomalously, some countries rich with natural resources are poorer than countries which have few natural resources. Sudan and Iraq are both oil producers but their people still suffer from egregious poverty, disease, high rate of unemployment, poor education and health system. Sadly, the Sudan government failed to manage its resources efficiently and much of their wealth from the oil is not distributed evenly among its people. Most of the money goes to the oil tycoons who are mostly foreigners and foreign oil companies while the remaining money is wasted by the government to build white elephants instead of improving the critical areas such as the education system. This paradox or resource curse mainly due to volatility of revenues from the natural resource sector, and government mismanagement, or political corruption, provoked by the inflows of easy windfalls from the resource sector. In contrast, countries which may have almost no resources can have a well-developed economy such as Singapore is listed the top 18 riches countries in the world with a foreign reserve of 212 billion. Singapore has well-diversified industries including refining, processing and manufacturing industries, in addition to its function as a trade entreport and the revenue from tourism. Therefore, it is not how much resource but how to manage them to achieve a sustainable economy and environment.

As a final note, developed and industrialised nations have an indispensable role to play in assisting the poor developed countries to manage their resources and not drain them of their wealth by economic pressures. The leading nations should be proactive in attempting a sustainable development by balancing economic needs with the protection of the environment and safeguarding the natural resources so that they would not only be able to fulfill the needs of the present now but also in the indefinite future.