Resource issues

There have been a number of discussions recently about resource issues. It is constantly in the news but never anywhere near the top level. During the various courses we run, particularly waste awareness courses, we look at resource efficiency and speak about fossil fuel (the UK's natural gas production has been declining since 2004), water (the south east of England is officially water-stressed) rare earth depletion and food security issues.

Peak Oil, something that has been causing some concern for a while, has finally caused Lord Hunt, the energy minister, to meet industrialists to calm rising fears over peak oil. According to the Guardian's report 'the government has agreed to undertake more work on whether the UK needs to take action to avoid the massive dislocation that could be caused by the early onset of 'peak oil'.' This follows on from a taskforce report in February which warned that Britain is unprepared for [peak oil and recommended packages including legislation, new technologies and behaviour-change incentives.

Peak Oil is a fairly well-known threat. Less well known resource issues have been raised by Sciencebloggers. Ethan Siegel is fascinating about helium, why we have any at all on Earth, why we need it and why it is a non-renewable resource. Dr Isis writes about 'why your medical care depends on weapons grade uranium'.

Business Week reports on further developments in China's management of various important metals including the rare earth elements so important in our modern technology and the Times updates us on the potential for phosphate depletion, a potentially disastrous issue that has been creeping up on us for some time now.

Finally, information about food security in the UK has been very nicely summarised in a one page document by DEFRA which the BBC publicised last year.

I don't have any particularly cheery words to say about any of the above other than to say that DEFRA seems to be more optimistic than I feel, and I really hope they are right.