The Triple Crisis Blog is pleased to welcome Edward B. Barbier,
John S. Bugas Professor of Economics at the University of
Wyoming, as a regular blogger. In my recent book, Scarcity and
Frontiers: How Economies Have Developed Through Natural Resource
Scarcity, I have argued that the world is entering a new era,
the “Age of Ecological Scarcity”. The main development challenge
of this era is the implications for global poverty. Exacerbating
the problem is that, compared to past eras in human history,
economic growth through exploiting abundant “frontiers” of land
and natural resources will no longer be the means to improve the
livelihoods of the poorest human populations. Global ecosystems
and freshwater sources are clearly endangered by current
patterns of economic development. Over the past 50 years,
ecosystems have been modified more rapidly and extensively than
in any comparable period in human history, largely to meet
rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and
fuel. The result has been