Unit 2: Topic 2 – Consuming Resources Student Question and Answer Sheet

What might be some of the impacts of population growth on resources?

  • More expensive food; more expensive fuel; climate change (the atmosphere is a resource – good); more migration (and conflict); war.

How can resources be categorised?

  • Three major categories (especially for energy) include: renewable energy (e.g. wind farms in the USA); sustainable energy (e.g. bio-gas in India); and, non-renewable energy (e.g. natural gas supplies in Europe).

What are the costs and benefits of obtaining one type of energy from each of the three categories?

  • Wind Farms: costs – obscure attractive views and can be noisy; benefits – is a clean source of energy with very little carbon emissions once set up.
  • Bio-gas: costs – does produce methane gas which can harm the stmosphere and contribute to global warming/climate change; benefits – can provide developing countries with a source of fuel that is alternative to oil and gas which they may not have.
  • Natural gas: costs – costs - not a renewable and will therefore run out (by about 2030?); benefits - a relatively clean form of energy in comparison to coal or oil and therefore contributes less to climate change and global warming.

Why do developing countries have better supply of some resources such as oil?

  • More economically Developed Countries (MEDCs) have a higher demand for oil as their rich populations use things such as central heating in houses, cars for transport and plastic in their consumer goods. This means that poorer countries that have oil sell it to make money for their economies rather than keep it for their own populations that do not need it as much – and certainly cannot afford to pay as much for it.

If global economic growth continues (especially in countries such as China) what will be the impact on resources such as oil?

  • As countries become more developed their demand for oil increases, this is because they are more likely to be driving cars (petrol comes from oil) and buying consumer goods often made from plastic (plastic comes from oil). As these nations have huge populations the demand for oil will grow significantly – this will mean that the countries that can afford the highest prices will get the oil.

What was Thomas Malthus’s opinion on population change?

  • “We’re all doomed”: that population would reach a critical point where there would be too few resources and the earth’s population would naturally get smaller through ‘natural checks’ such as famine (food shortage)

What was Ester Boserup’s opinion on population change?

  • She believed that people would think of inventive solutions to overpopulation and that creativity would win out over shortages in resources. Necessity is the mother of invention – a believer in people and technology!

In what ways can we reduce the demand for resources such as oil?

  • Recycling – especially of plastic. This will reduce the amount of crude oil used for making new plastic bottles (especially mineral water and pop!).
  • Technology – cars that run on electricity are a good way of reducing demand on oil (but the electricity that we charge them up with must come from sustainable resources such as wind farms!).

Can renewable energy alternatives provide a technological fix?

  • Examples of sustainable buildings in California suggest that it is possible to provide alternative forms of heating and lighting to reduce demand on traditional forms of energy. Google have also proven that transport to and from work can also become a sustainable part of everyone’s working lives (e.g. electric pool cars, shuttle buses to collect workers, schemes to donate money to charity for cycling to work)