From Solutions Journal, January 2012. Also published in the 20th
Anniversary edition of Richard Heinberg's Musletter. From
competition among hunter-gatherers for wild game to imperialist
wars over precious minerals, resource wars have been fought
throughout history; today, however, the competition appears set
to enter a new—and perhaps unprecedented—phase. As natural
resources deplete, and as the Earth’s climate becomes less
stable, the world’s nations will likely compete ever more
desperately for access to fossil fuels, minerals, agricultural
land, and water. Nations need increasing amounts of energy and
raw materials to produce economic growth, but the costs of
supplying new increments of energy and materials are burgeoning.
In many cases, lower-quality resources with high extraction
costs are all that remain. Securing access to these resources
often requires military expenditures as well. Meanwhile the
struggle for the control of resources is re-aligning political
power balances throughout the world. This