Gigantic Demand

Formerly, when the human family lived a largely agricultural life, the demand on earth’s resources was very small. But with the coming of the industrial age several centuries ago, demand for raw materials grew at a tremendous pace.

Industrial societies need factories, offices, apartment buildings, power plants, machines, transportation, energy. These things cannot be built without steel, aluminum, copper, concrete and other materials. And industrial civilization is fueled chiefly by petroleum.

In the industrial lands of western Europe, Japan and North America, the demand for all such resources has been growing several times as fast as their rate of population growth. But this growth in demand is getting another push​—from the exploding populations in what is called the “underdeveloped” world.

People in these poorer lands also want the machines and other material goods that they see in the industrial nations. And their leaders are pushing those countries into the industrial age as fast as they can. An example of how much this can increase demand for all sorts of goods can be seen from just one item involving an industrialized land, as noted in the book Introduction to Geology: “The consumption of iron in the United States increased some twenty times while the population of the country doubled.”

Yes, when a nation becomes highly industrialized, its appetite for raw materials increases all out of proportion to its population increase. And in the poorer countries, there are billions of people demanding the goods turned out by industry. As ecologists Paul Ehrlich and Dennis Pirages state in their book Ark II: “This crisis of numbers is exacerbated by a worldwide revolution of rising expectations. Materialism has become a universal religion. Continued increases in production of artifacts are regarded as a necessity by almost everyone.”

Thus, the overall population explosion in the world, plus the insatiable demand of the already industrialized nations, and now the growing expectations of poorer nations all add severe strains on the availability of earth’s resources. How severe is noted by political scientist William Ophuls in Harper’s magazine:

“To accommodate world population growth, we must, in roughly the next thirty years, build houses, hospitals, ports, factories, bridges, and every other kind of facility in numbers that almost equal all the construction work done by the human race up to now. . . .

“Problems now develop so rapidly that they must be foreseen well in advance. Otherwise, our ‘solutions’ will be too little and too late. . . .

“Only the most exquisite care will prevent the collapse of the technological society on which we all depend.”

The strain was clearly visible in 1973 and early 1974. Then, due to generally “booming” economies throughout the world, demand for goods rose swiftly. Governments had borrowed and pumped more and more money into their economies to sustain this prosperity. But while demand suddenly rose, newer factories and mines were not being built fast enough. Inventories were exhausted in a short time. A typical example was that of copper, which had an average production growth of about 4 percent a year since the early 1950’s. But in 1973 demand for copper in the Western world increased by more than 10 percent. Thus, demand for goods outstripped the ability to produce them, which also helped to bring about rampant inflation.

With inflation, the cost of borrowing money rose swiftly. This made it more costly to build newer production facilities. As U.S. News & World Report observed: “In one industry after another, shortages of materials and capacity are intensified by what is, perhaps, the most critical shortage of all​—money. . . . Industry is hard pressed to find ways to pay for the manufacturing capacity to keep up with demand.”

Prices​—Up, Up, Up

Prices, of course, fluctuate. Sometimes they go lower, especially when there is a surplus of certain goods. But the steady increase in demand year by year, the growing shortages, and competition for earth’s resources have put a generally upward pressure on prices. Examples of this can be noted in the accompanying chart of sample wholesale price increases.

[Chart on page 18]

WHOLESALE PRICE INCREASES WITHIN THE UNITED STATES IN JUST ONE YEAR

COMMODITY MID-1973 MID-1974 INCREASE

Newsprint, ton $169.00 $205.00 21 percent

Steel scrap, ton 53.00 145.00 174 percent

Sulphuric acid, ton 31.00 41.00 32 percent

Tin, lb. 2.18 4.49 106 percent

Copper, lb.  .60  .86 43 percent

Aluminum ingot, lb.  .25  .33 32 percent

Zinc, lb.  .21  .35 67 percent

Gasoline, gal.  .14  .28 100 percent

Fuel oil, gal.  .11  .23 209 percent