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Sunday, August 29, 2021

Utopian socialism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often described as the presentation of visions and outlines for imaginary or futuristic ideal societies, with positive ideals being the main reason for moving society in such a direction. Later socialists and critics of utopian socialism viewed utopian socialism as not being grounded in actual material conditions of existing society and in some cases as reactionary. These visions of ideal societies competed with Marxist-inspired revolutionary social democratic movements.

As a term or label, utopian socialism is most often applied to, or used to define, those socialists who lived in the first quarter of the 19th century who were ascribed the label utopian by later socialists as a pejorative in order to imply naiveté and to dismiss their ideas as fanciful and unrealistic. A similar school of thought that emerged in the early 20th century which makes the case for socialism on moral grounds is ethical socialism.

One key difference between utopian socialists and other socialists such as most anarchists and Marxists is that utopian socialists generally do not believe any form of class struggle or social revolution is necessary for socialism to emerge. Utopian socialists believe that people of all classes can voluntarily adopt their plan for society if it is presented convincingly. They feel their form of cooperative socialism can be established among like-minded people within the existing society and that their small communities can demonstrate the feasibility of their plan for society.

Definition

The thinkers identified as utopian socialist did not use the term utopian to refer to their ideas. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were the first thinkers to refer to them as utopian, referring to all socialist ideas that simply presented a vision and distant goal of an ethically just society as utopian. This utopian mindset which held an integrated conception of the goal, the means to produce said goal and an understanding of the way that those means would inevitably be produced through examining social and economic phenomena can be contrasted with scientific socialism which has been likened to Taylorism.

This distinction was made clear in Engels' work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1892, part of an earlier publication, the Anti-Dühring from 1878). Utopian socialists were seen as wanting to expand the principles of the French revolution in order to create a more rational society. Despite being labeled as utopian by later socialists, their aims were not always utopian and their values often included rigid support for the scientific method and the creation of a society based upon scientific understanding.

Development

The term utopian socialism was introduced by Karl Marx in "For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything" in 1843 and then developed in The Communist Manifesto in 1848, although shortly before its publication Marx had already attacked the ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in The Poverty of Philosophy (originally written in French, 1847). The term was used by later socialist thinkers to describe early socialist or quasi-socialist intellectuals who created hypothetical visions of egalitarian, communalist, meritocratic, or other notions of perfect societies without considering how these societies could be created or sustained.

In The Poverty of Philosophy, Marx criticized the economic and philosophical arguments of Proudhon set forth in The System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty. Marx accused Proudhon of wanting to rise above the bourgeoisie. In the history of Marx's thought and Marxism, this work is pivotal in the distinction between the concepts of utopian socialism and what Marx and the Marxists claimed as scientific socialism. Although utopian socialists shared few political, social, or economic perspectives, Marx and Engels argued that they shared certain intellectual characteristics. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote:

The undeveloped state of the class struggle, as well as their own surroundings, causes Socialists of this kind to consider themselves far superior to all class antagonisms. They want to improve the condition of every member of society, even that of the most favored. Hence, they habitually appeal to society at large, without distinction of class; nay, by preference, to the ruling class. For how can people, when once they understand their system, fail to see it in the best possible plan of the best possible state of society? Hence, they reject all political, and especially all revolutionary, action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, and endeavor, by small experiments, necessarily doomed to failure, and by the force of example, to pave the way for the new social Gospel.

Marx and Engels associated utopian socialism with communitarian socialism which similarly sees the establishment of small intentional communities as both a strategy for achieving and the final form of a socialist society. Marx and Engels used the term scientific socialism to describe the type of socialism they saw themselves developing. According to Engels, socialism was not "an accidental discovery of this or that ingenious brain, but the necessary outcome of the struggle between two historically developed classes, namely the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Its task was no longer to manufacture a system of society as perfect as possible, but to examine the historical-economic succession of events from which these classes and their antagonism had of necessity sprung, and to discover in the economic conditions thus created the means of ending the conflict". Critics have argued that utopian socialists who established experimental communities were in fact trying to apply the scientific method to human social organization and were therefore not utopian. On the basis of Karl Popper's definition of science as "the practice of experimentation, of hypothesis and test", Joshua Muravchik argued that "Owen and Fourier and their followers were the real 'scientific socialists.' They hit upon the idea of socialism, and they tested it by attempting to form socialist communities". By contrast, Muravchik further argued that Marx made untestable predictions about the future and that Marx's view that socialism would be created by impersonal historical forces may lead one to conclude that it is unnecessary to strive for socialism because it will happen anyway.

Since the mid-19th century, Marxism and Marxism–Leninism overtook utopian socialism in terms of intellectual development and number of adherents. At one time almost half the population of the world lived under regimes that claimed to be Marxist. Currents such as Saint-Simonianism and Fourierism attracted the interest of numerous later authors but failed to compete with the now dominant Marxist, Proudhonist, or Leninist schools on a political level. It has been noted that they exerted a significant influence on the emergence of new religious movements such as spiritualism and occultism.

In literature and in practice

Perhaps the first utopian socialist was Thomas More (1478–1535), who wrote about an imaginary socialist society in his book Utopia, published in 1516. The contemporary definition of the English word utopia derives from this work and many aspects of More's description of Utopia were influenced by life in monasteries.

Saint-Simonianism was a French political and social movement of the first half of the 19th century, inspired by the ideas of Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825). His ideas influenced Auguste Comte (who was for a time Saint-Simon's secretary), Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill and many other thinkers and social theorists.

Robert Owen was one of the founders of utopian socialism.

Robert Owen (1771–1858) was a successful Welsh businessman who devoted much of his profits to improving the lives of his employees. His reputation grew when he set up a textile factory in New Lanark, Scotland, co-funded by his teacher, the utilitarian Jeremy Bentham and introduced shorter working hours, schools for children and renovated housing. He wrote about his ideas in his book A New View of Society which was published in 1813 and An Explanation of the Cause of Distress which pervades the civilized parts of the world in 1823. He also set up an Owenite commune called New Harmony in Indiana. This collapsed when one of his business partners ran off with all the profits. Owen's main contribution to socialist thought was the view that human social behavior is not fixed or absolute and that humans have the free will to organize themselves into any kind of society they wished.

Charles Fourier (1772–1837) rejected the Industrial Revolution altogether and thus the problems that arose with it. Fourier made various fanciful claims about the ideal world he envisioned. Despite some clearly non-socialist inclinations, he contributed significantly even if indirectly to the socialist movement. His writings about turning work into play influenced the young Karl Marx and helped him devise his theory of alienation. Also a contributor to feminism, Fourier invented the concept of phalanstère, units of people based on a theory of passions and of their combination. Several colonies based on Fourier's ideas were founded in the United States by Albert Brisbane and Horace Greeley.

Many Romantic authors, most notably William Godwin and Percy Bysshe Shelley, wrote anti-capitalist works and supported peasant revolutions across early 19th century Europe. Étienne Cabet (1788–1856), influenced by Robert Owen, published a book in 1840 entitled Travel and adventures of Lord William Carisdall in Icaria in which he described an ideal communalist society. His attempts to form real socialist communities based on his ideas through the Icarian movement did not survive, but one such community was the precursor of Corning, Iowa. Possibly inspired by Christianity, he coined the word communism and influenced other thinkers, including Marx and Engels.

Utopian socialist pamphlet of Swiss social medical doctor Rudolf Sutermeister (1802–1868)

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) published Looking Backward in 1888, a utopian romance novel about a future socialist society. In Bellamy's utopia, property was held in common and money replaced with a system of equal credit for all. Valid for a year and non-transferable between individuals, credit expenditure was to be tracked via "credit-cards" (which bear no resemblance to modern credit cards which are tools of debt-finance). Labour was compulsory from age 21 to 40 and organised via various departments of an Industrial Army to which most citizens belonged. Working hours were to be cut drastically due to technological advances (including organisational). People were expected to be motivated by a Religion of Solidarity and criminal behavior was treated as a form of mental illness or "atavism". The book ranked as second or third best seller of its time (after Uncle Tom's Cabin and Ben Hur). In 1897, Bellamy published a sequel entitled Equality as a reply to his critics and which lacked the Industrial Army and other authoritarian aspects.

William Morris (1834–1896) published News from Nowhere in 1890, partly as a response to Bellamy's Looking Backwards, which he equated with the socialism of Fabians such as Sydney Webb. Morris' vision of the future socialist society was centred around his concept of useful work as opposed to useless toil and the redemption of human labour. Morris believed that all work should be artistic, in the sense that the worker should find it both pleasurable and an outlet for creativity. Morris' conception of labour thus bears strong resemblance to Fourier's, while Bellamy's (the reduction of labour) is more akin to that of Saint-Simon or in aspects Marx.

The Brotherhood Church in Britain and the Life and Labor Commune in Russia were based on the Christian anarchist ideas of Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910). Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) and Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) wrote about anarchist forms of socialism in their books. Proudhon wrote What is Property? (1840) and The System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty (1847). Kropotkin wrote The Conquest of Bread (1892) and Fields, Factories and Workshops (1912). Many of the anarchist collectives formed in Spain, especially in Aragon and Catalonia, during the Spanish Civil War were based on their ideas. While linking to different topics is always useful to maximize exposure, anarchism does not derive itself from utopian socialism and most anarchists would consider the association to essentially be a marxist slur designed to reduce the credibility of anarchism amongst socialists.

Many participants in the historical kibbutz movement in Israel were motivated by utopian socialist ideas. Augustin Souchy (1892–1984) spent most of his life investigating and participating in many kinds of socialist communities. Souchy wrote about his experiences in his autobiography Beware! Anarchist! Behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner (1904–1990) published Walden Two in 1948. The Twin Oaks Community was originally based on his ideas. Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) wrote about an impoverished anarchist society in her book The Dispossessed, published in 1974, in which the anarchists agree to leave their home planet and colonize a barely habitable moon in order to avoid a bloody revolution.

Related concepts

Some communities of the modern intentional community movement such as kibbutzim could be categorized as utopian socialist. Some religious communities such as the Hutterites are categorized as utopian religious socialists.

Classless modes of production in hunter-gatherer societies are referred to as primitive communism by Marxists to stress their classless nature. A related concept is that of a socialist utopia, usually depicted in works of fiction as possible ways society can turn out to be in the future and often combined with notions of a technologically revolutionized economy.

Notable utopian socialists

Notable utopian communities

Utopian communities have existed all over the world. In various forms and locations, they have existed continuously in the United States since the 1730s, beginning with Ephrata Cloister, a religious community in what is now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Owenite communities
Fourierist communities
Icarian communities
Anarchist communities
Others
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Philosophy of Baruch Spinoza

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Baruch_Spinoza

Portrait of Benedictus de Spinoza
Spinoza lived from 1632 to 1677.

Baruch Spinoza's philosophy encompasses nearly every area of philosophical discourse, including metaphysics, epistemology, political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. It earned Spinoza an enduring reputation as one of the most important and original thinkers of the seventeenth century.

Samuel Shirley, who translated Spinoza's complete works into English, summed up the significance of Spinoza's philosophy as follows:

To my mind, although Spinoza lived and thought long before Darwin, Freud, Einstein, and the startling implications of quantum theory, he had a vision of truth beyond what is normally granted to human beings.

Spinoza's philosophy is largely contained in two books: the Theologico-Political Treatise, and the Ethics. The former was published during his lifetime, but the latter, which contains the entirety of his philosophical system in its most rigorous form, was not published until after his death in 1677. The rest of the writings we have from Spinoza are either earlier, or incomplete, works expressing thoughts that were crystallized in the two aforementioned books (e.g., the Short Treatise and the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect), or else they are not directly concerned with Spinoza's own philosophy (e.g., The Principles of Cartesian Philosophy and The Hebrew Grammar). He also left behind many letters that help to illuminate his ideas and provide some insight into what may have been motivating his views.

Philosophy of religion

Spinoza's philosophy of religion is largely contained in the Theologico-Political Treatise. In that work he argues for the view that we should interpret scripture solely on its own terms by carefully studying it, not with any concepts or doctrines that cannot themselves be derived from the text. If we do this, he thought, it would turn out that many things we believe or are told by religious authorities about God and the universe could be shown to be false (e.g., miracles). Spinoza's view is exemplified in the following sentence from the Preface to the Theological Political Treatise:

[It] is further evident from the fact that most of them assume as a basic principle for the understanding of Scripture and for extracting its true meaning that it is throughout truthful and divine--a conclusion which ought to be the end result of study and strict examination; and they lay down at the outset as a principle of interpretation that which would be far more properly derived from Scripture itself, which stands in no need of human fabrications.

Ontological argument

In Spinoza’s Ethics, he wrote a section titled “Treating of God and What Pertains to Him,” in which he discusses God’s existence and what God is. He starts off by saying: “whether there is a God, this, we say, can be proved”. His proof for God follows a similar structure as Descartes’ ontological argument. Descartes attempts to prove God’s existence by arguing that there “must be some one thing that is supremely good, through which all good things have their goodness”. Spinoza’s argument differs in that he does not move straight from the conceivability of the greatest being to the existence of God, but rather uses a deductive argument from the idea of God. Spinoza says that man’s ideas do not come from himself, but from some sort of external cause. Thus the things whose characteristics a man knows must have come from some prior source. So, if man has the idea of God, then God must exist before this thought, because man cannot create an idea of his own imagination.

Substance of God

After stating his proof for God’s existence, Spinoza addresses who “God” is. Spinoza believed that God is “the sum of the natural and physical laws of the universe and certainly not an individual entity or creator”. Spinoza attempts to prove that God is just the substance of the universe by first stating that substances do not share attributes or essences, and then demonstrating that God is a “substance” with an infinite number of attributes, thus the attributes possessed by any other substances must also be possessed by God. Therefore, God is just the sum of all the substances of the universe. God is the only substance in the universe, and everything is a part of God. “Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God”. This concept of God is very similar to the Advaita Vedanta of Hinduism.  This view was described by Charles Hartshorne as Classical Pantheism. Spinoza has also been described as an "Epicurean materialist", specifically in reference to his opposition to Cartesian mind-body dualism. This view was held by Epicureans before him, as they believed that atoms with their probabilistic paths were the only substance that existed fundamentally. Spinoza, however, deviated significantly from Epicureans by adhering to strict determinism, much like the Stoics before him, in contrast to the Epicurean belief in the probabilistic path of atoms, which is more in line with contemporary thought on quantum mechanics.

Political philosophy

Tractatus Theologico-Politicus was published anonymously.

Spinoza's political philosophy is deeply influenced by both the turbulent time period in which he lived, and by the fact that he happened to live in a comparatively liberal place in Europe, which allowed him freedoms he wished to preserve and defend, as he says in the Preface to the Theological Political Treatise:

Now since we have the rare good fortune to live in a commonwealth where freedom of judgment is fully granted to the individual citizen and he may worship God as he pleases, and where nothing is esteemed dearer and more precious than freedom, I think I am undertaking no ungrateful or unprofitable task in demonstrating that not only can this freedom be granted without endangering piety and the peace of the commonwealth, but also the peace of the commonwealth and piety depend on this freedom.

Spinoza's political philosophy is scattered in three books, the Theologico-political Treatise, the Ethics and the Political Treatise. A first look at its main principles could bring the uninformed reader to believe that it is the same as Hobbes's. Yet both theories differ in their conclusions. Spinoza's political philosophy is also a philosophy of the conatus, the individual tendency to exist, which cannot be brought to extinction even in the most powerful Leviathan, even in the worst of authoritarian regimes. Every individual, in Spinoza's opinion, has a natural right. This right includes everything that he desires and he is able to obtain. As a result, my own natural right is the equivalent of my individual strength or power. Hence, in Spinoza's political philosophy subjective rights (e.g. human rights) do not exist by nature, they are an institution of society, they only exist in the civil state. Moreover, according to Spinoza the notions of right and wrong have no meaning before society, since in the natural state there are no common norms, only individual desires (desires which can bring some people to dominate other weaker people).

How can civil society exist if people are only dominated by their own impulse to live? Through many ways. First, through the action of affections, the same ones that are described in the Ethics. Those affections, my feelings, will bring me to cluster, to gather with people similar to myself: this similarity reinforces the feeling or representation of my own existence. In a similar fashion, human needs will also play a role: society, through distribution and specialisation of each task, can provide more goods than I can generate myself and with less effort. This is why the sciences and the arts can only develop in societies, where there is time to attend to things other than one's own survival. This fear, the need to constantly look after danger and threats and to live in constant tension, is the third cause or root phenomenon of society. Society brings me protection and security. We see hence that Spinoza, while incorporating in his work Hobbesian arguments (the argument of fear), develops a distinct analysis that will bring him to different conclusions: the need of a free society.

Here individuals never entirely renounce their individual right of nature. If in the Theologico-Political Treatise Spinoza refers to the notion of a pact that would be at the root of civil society, this notion disappears in the Political Treatise. People are not brought to form a society by their free will, but rather by their affections, or domination (a great number of individuals gathered through the authority of an unusually strong or charismatic man could also be a way to explain the birth of civil society). They are not passive subjects under the power of an absolute sovereign, but rather citizens that bring their own strength to the State. The power of the state exists in Spinoza's opinion only through the gathering of individual powers, powers which the society incorporates and can even develop if its political institutions are well designed. "Well designed" means that they must induce political leaders to act according to the rules, by their own will. In Spinoza's political philosophy, state is not opposed to the society but it is the apparatus that gives a certain form or existence to the society, to a gathering of human beings. It is not transcendent to it, as it is in Hobbes's philosophy.

These affirmations have some political implications. Here, individual rights exist only because we, as individuals, benefit from the power of our entire group. Members' rights are guaranteed by the strength of their political group (=State or imperium). Individual or subjective rights do not exist outside of a state, out of an organised society. But that doesn't mean that the government should have absolute power over us. To understand that well, we have to remember that according to Spinoza the government or society (there is no difference between them) are nothing else and do not exist without the individual conatuses of the individuals that are gathered in social entities. Individuals hold a part of their natural right in the civil state. They cannot restrain themselves from judging about the state of things as they wish, and any action that would go against this tendency can induce social unrest. It follows that the state must restrain itself from any action that could jeopardise its own integrity, as condemning determinate opinions can. In a broader perspective, a state that relies on fearsome and inhuman ways to preserve its power cannot survive for long, since those ways impede the development of its own strength, and reinforce the tendency of the multitudo, the masses, to unrest or to disobedience: obedience is necessary to preserve social order and peace.

Thus, we can distinguish Hobbes and Spinoza through the way they see the normal operation of the state. For Hobbes, the object of the state is to preserve peace through security and fear if needed. According to Spinoza, that kind of peace would not be a true peace but only the absence of unrest. True peace implies a state of things where individuals can accomplish and realise their potentialities, where there is a minimum peace of mind. This is why Spinoza favors states that are organised so that citizens can participate in the elaboration of laws, as a way to improve their quality, and in the operation of the state.

The vocabulary of Spinoza shows a modification of the way philosophers see politics compared to the Antiquity. In Plato's and Aristotle's works good politics imply good government (defined as the way decisions are taken in a certain political community), in the sense that the different types of government can be ranked according to their virtues (aristocracy is better than democracy, which is better than oligarchy and tyranny according to Plato, and so on). Spinoza goes beyond this way of seeing things. There is not a better government in this sense: the better government is the government that the people of a certain country have been accustomed to, and there is no good in changing it: such a change alters the balance of power already in place and can bring unrest, conflict between opposed or entrenched interests. According to him, one should rather aim to design better institutions: for type of regime or government (Monarchy, Aristocracy, Democracy) Spinoza implements the outlines of what should be the good institutions for this regime. For example, in Monarchy there should be an official Council of the king, whose members are chosen formally, and whose opinions form a set of possible decisions for the king. This is a way of avoiding the issue of the king's secret counselors or ministers, who have a lot of influence on the king and often are the true decision takers. This system makes public and transparent through a formal process a matter of fact, the existence of a circle of advisers around the king.

For further reference, see Spinoza's Political Philosophy.

Philosophy of mind/psychology

The human mind

Spinoza argues for a distinct conception of the human mind in Part Two of The Ethics. He says the following:

The first thing that constitutes the actual being of a human Mind is nothing but the idea of a singular thing which actually exists.(E2P11)

He then argues that it follows that "the human Mind is a part of the infinite intellect of God."(E2P11c) Further, Spinoza says: "Whatever happens in the object of the idea constituting the human Mind must be perceived by the human Mind"(E2P12) From this we get a clear rejection of Descartes' mind/body dualism: "The object of the idea constituting the human Mind is the Body, or a certain mode of Extension which actually exists, and nothing else."(E2P13)

The emotions

One thing which seems, on the surface, to distinguish Spinoza's view of the emotions from both Descartes' and Hume's pictures of them is that he takes the emotions to be cognitive in some important respect. Jonathan Bennett claims that "Spinoza mainly saw emotions as caused by cognitions. [However] he did not say this clearly enough and sometimes lost sight of it entirely." Spinoza provides several demonstrations which purport to show truths about how human emotions work. The picture presented is, according to Bennett, "unflattering, coloured as it is by universal egoism" Spinoza's treatment of the emotions in Part Three of The Ethics, "On the Origin and Nature of the Affects", utilizes a broad set of terminology, clearly intended to cover the whole of human experience. He tells us in the Preface:

The Affects, therefore, of hate, anger, envy, etc., considered in themselves, follow from the same necessity and force of nature as any other singular things. And therefore they acknowledge certain causes, through which they are understood, and have certain properties, as worthy of our knowledge as the properties of any other thing, by the mere contemplation of which we are pleased.

Human freedom

Whether there is any meaningful kind of freedom which humans may genuinely have is, in Spinoza's picture, at least contentious. He certainly claims that there is a kind of freedom, namely, that which is arrived at through adequate knowledge of God, or, what is the same: the universe. But in the last two propositions of Part Two of The Ethics, P48 and P49, he explicitly rejects the traditional notion of free will. In E2P48, he claims:

In the Mind there is no absolute, or free, will, but the Mind is determined to will this or that by a cause which is also determined by another, and this again by another, and so to infinity.

So from this we get a strong sense of Spinoza's metaphysical naturalism, that is, that the natural and human orders are contiguous. With that being the case, human freedom of a kind which would extricate us from the order of physical causes is impossible. However, Spinoza argues, we still ought to strive to understand the world around us, and in doing so, gain a greater degree of power, which will allow us to be more active than passive, and there is a sense in which this is a kind of freedom. For more, see: Stanford.edu

Metaphysics

Spinoza's metaphysics consists of one thing, substance, and its modifications (modes). Early in The Ethics Spinoza argues that there is only one substance, which is absolutely infinite, self-caused, and eternal. He calls this substance "God", or "Nature". In fact, he takes these two terms to be synonymous (in the Latin the phrase he uses is "Deus sive Natura"). For Spinoza the whole of the natural universe is made of one substance, God, or, what's the same, Nature, and its modifications (modes).

It cannot be overemphasized how the rest of Spinoza's philosophy—his philosophy of mind, his epistemology, his psychology, his moral philosophy, his political philosophy, and his philosophy of religion—flows more or less directly from the metaphysical underpinnings in Part I of the Ethics.

Substance

Spinoza defines "substance" as follows:

By substance I understand what is in itself and is conceived through itself, i.e., that whose concept does not require the concept of another thing, from which it must be formed.(E1D3)

This means, essentially, that substance is just whatever can be thought of without relating it to any other idea or thing. For example, if one thinks of a particular object, one thinks of it as a kind of thing, e.g., x is a cat. Substance, on the other hand, is to be conceived of by itself, without understanding it as a particular kind of thing (because it isn't a particular thing at all).

Attributes

Spinoza defines "attribute" as follows:

By attribute I understand what the intellect perceives of a substance, as constituting its essence.(E1D4)

From this it can be seen that attributes are related to substance in some way. It is not clear, however, even from Spinoza's direct definition, whether, a) attributes are really the way(s) substance is, or b) attributes are simply ways to understand substance, but not necessarily the ways it really is. Spinoza thinks that there are an infinite number of attributes, but there are two attributes for which Spinoza thinks we can have knowledge. Namely, thought and extension.

Thought

The attribute of thought is how substance can be understood to give rise to thoughts, or thinking things. When we understand a particular thing in the universe through the attribute of thought, we are understanding the mode as an idea of something (either another idea, or an object).

Extension

The attribute of extension is how substance can be understood to be physically extended in space. Particular things which have breadth and depth (that is, occupy space) are what is meant by extended. It follows from this that if substance and God are identical, on Spinoza's view, and contrary to the traditional conception, God has extension as one of His attributes.

Modes

Modes are particular modifications of substance, i.e., particular things in the world. Spinoza gives the following definition:

By mode I understand the affections of a substance, or that which is in another through which it is also conceived.(E1D5)

Substance monism

The argument for there only being one substance in the universe occurs in the first fourteen propositions of The Ethics. The following proposition expresses Spinoza's commitment to substance monism:

Except God, no substance can be or be conceived.(E1P14)

Spinoza takes this proposition to follow directly from everything he says prior to it. Spinoza's monism is contrasted with Descartes' dualism and Leibniz's pluralism. It allows Spinoza to avoid the problem of interaction between mind and body, which troubled Descartes in his Meditations on First Philosophy.

Causality and modality

The issue of causality and modality (possibility and necessity) in Spinoza's philosophy is contentious. Spinoza's philosophy is, in one sense, thoroughly deterministic (or necessitarian). This can be seen directly from Axiom 3 of The Ethics:

From a given determinate cause the effect follows necessarily; and conversely, if there is no determinate cause, it is impossible for an effect to follow.(E1A3)

Yet Spinoza seems to make room for a kind of freedom, especially in the fifth and final section of The Ethics, "On the Power of the Intellect, or on Human Freedom":

I pass, finally, to the remaining Part of the Ethics, which concerns the means or way, leading to Freedom. Here, then, I shall treat of the power of reason, showing what it can do against the affects, and what Freedom of Mind, or blessedness, is.(E5, Preface)

So Spinoza certainly has a use for the word 'freedom', but he equates "Freedom of Mind" with "blessedness", a notion which is not traditionally associated with freedom of the will at all.

The principle of sufficient reason (PSR)

Though the PSR is most commonly associated with Gottfried Leibniz, it is arguably found in its strongest form in Spinoza's philosophy. Within the context of Spinoza's philosophical system, the PSR can be understood to unify causation and explanation. What this means is that for Spinoza, questions regarding the reason why a given phenomenon is the way it is (or exists) are always answerable, and are always answerable in terms of the relevant cause(s). This constitutes a rejection of teleological, or final causation, except possibly in a more restricted sense for human beings. Given this, Spinoza's views regarding causality and modality begin to make much more sense.

Parallelism

Spinoza's philosophy contains as a key proposition the notion that mental and physical (thought and extension) phenomena occur in parallel, but without causal interaction between them. He expresses this proposition as follows:

The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.(E2P7)

His proof of this proposition is that:

The knowledge of an effect depends on, and involves, the knowledge of its cause.(E1A4)

The reason Spinoza thinks the parallelism follows from this axiom is that since the idea we have of each thing requires knowledge of its cause, this cause must be understood under the same attribute. Further, there is only one substance, so whenever we understand some chain of ideas of things, we understand that the way the ideas are causally related must be the same as the way the things themselves are related, since the ideas and the things are the same modes understood under different attributes.

Epistemology

Spinoza's epistemology is deeply rationalist. That is, unlike the empiricists who rejected knowledge of things as they are in themselves (in favour of knowledge merely of what appears to the senses), to think we can have a priori knowledge, knowledge of a world external from our sense perceptions, and, further, that this is tantamount to knowledge of God. The majority of Spinoza's epistemological claims come in Part Two of The Ethics.

Truth and falsity

Spinoza's notions of truth and falsity have to do with the relation between ideas and their objects. He thinks that:

Every idea that in us is absolute, or adequate and perfect, is true. (E2P34)

Falsity consists in the privation of knowledge which inadequate, or mutilated and confused, ideas involve.(E2P35)

Adequate and inadequate ideas

From this it is clear that the notions of adequate and inadequate ideas are important for understanding how Spinoza's view works. This may be explained in the following way. Spinoza argues that "All ideas, insofar as they are related to God, are true."(E2P32) Since by "God", he means the one substance which exists necessarily and absolutely infinitely, it follows that an idea as it is with no reference to knowledge a particular person has, is necessarily true, since it just is a particular instance of God. (E2P32)

On the other hand, Spinoza argues: "All ideas are in God; and, insofar as they are related to God, are true, and adequate. And so there are no inadequate or confused ideas except insofar as they are related to the singular Mind of someone."(E2P36d). That is, even though ideas considered objectively as elements of the universe are always adequate (meaning their relation to their object is total), when a particular individual has an idea of something, such an idea is necessarily incomplete, and therefore, inadequate. This is the source of falsehood.

Three kinds of knowledge

Spinoza discusses the three kinds of knowledge in E2P40s2.

The first kind of knowledge

Spinoza thinks there are two ways we can have the first kind of knowledge:

  1. From random experience: "from singular things which have been represented to us through the senses in a way that is mutilated, confused, and without order for the intellect; for that reasons I have been accustomed to call such perceptions knowledge from random experience."
  2. From imagination: "from signs, e.g., from the fact that, having heard or read certain words, we recollect things, and form certain ideas of them, which are like them, and through which we imagine the things."

He calls these two ways "knowledge of the first kind, opinion or imagination."

The second kind of knowledge

Spinoza argues that the second kind of knowledge arises:

from the fact that we have common notions and adequate ideas of the properties of things."

He goes on to explain what this means in the propositions which immediately follow.

The third kind of knowledge

This can be referred to as Intuition, but it means something rather technical for Spinoza. The third kind of knowledge is a particularly important part of Spinoza's philosophy because it is what he thinks allows us to have adequate knowledge, and therefore know things absolutely truly. As he says:

there is (as I shall show in what follows) another, third kind, which we shall call intuitive knowledge. And this kind of knowing proceeds from an adequate idea of certain attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the essence of things.

Ethics

The opening page of Spinoza's magnum opus, Ethics

Spinoza's ethical views are deeply tied to his metaphysical system. This is evident from the following claim:

As far as good and evil are concerned, they also indicate nothing positive in things, considered in themselves, nor are they anything other than modes of thinking, or notions we form because we compare things to one another.(E4, Preface)

It is also apparent from this that he is a kind of subjectivist about moral values. That is, he does not take good and evil to be real properties/facts in the objects we attribute them to, but rather, they are simply thoughts we have about the comparative value of one thing to another for a particular person.

"Good" and "Evil"

Spinoza gives the following definitions of "Good", and "Evil":

By good I shall understand what we certainly know to be useful to us.(E4D1)

By evil, however, I shall understand what we certainly know prevents us from being masters of some good.(E4D2) From this it is clear that Spinoza's view of moral value is in some sense instrumental. That is, the goodness or badness of a particular object or action is measured not by some essential property. The emphasis on "essential knowledge" is important, given Spinoza's view of what epistemic certainty amounts to, i.e., adequate knowledge of God (a notion which is briefly elaborated on in this article).

Blessedness

Spinoza's notion of blessedness figures centrally in his ethical philosophy. Blessedness (or salvation or freedom), Spinoza thinks,

consists...in a constant and eternal love of God, or in God's love for men.(E5P36s)

And this means, as Jonathan Bennett explains, that "Spinoza wants "blessedness" to stand for the most elevated and desirable state one could possibly be in." Here, understanding what is meant by 'most elevated and desirable state' requires understanding Spinoza's notion of conatus (read: striving, but not necessarily with any teleological baggage) and that "perfection" refers not to (moral) value, but to completeness. Given that individuals are identified as mere modifications of the infinite Substance, it follows that no individual can ever be fully complete, i.e., perfect, or blessed. Absolute perfection, is, as noted above, reserved solely for Substance. Nevertheless, mere modes can attain a lesser form of blessedness, namely, that of pure understanding of oneself as one really is, i.e., as a definite modification of Substance in a certain set of relationships with everything else in the universe. That this is what Spinoza has in mind can be seen at the end of the Ethics, in E5P24 and E5P25, wherein Spinoza makes two final key moves, unifying the metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical propositions he has developed over the course of the work. In E5P24, he links the understanding of particular things to the understanding of God, or Substance; in E5P25, the conatus of the mind is linked to the third kind of knowledge (Intuition). From here, it is a short step to the connection of Blessedness with the amor dei intellectualis ("intellectual love of God").

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Thursday, August 26, 2021

Nuclear power proposed as renewable energy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Whether nuclear power should be considered a form of renewable energy is an ongoing subject of debate. Statutory definitions of renewable energy usually exclude many present nuclear energy technologies, with the notable exception of the state of Utah. Dictionary-sourced definitions of renewable energy technologies often omit or explicitly exclude mention of nuclear energy sources, with an exception made for the natural nuclear decay heat generated within the Earth.

The most common fuel used in conventional nuclear fission power stations, uranium-235 is "non-renewable" according to the Energy Information Administration, the organization however is silent on the recycled MOX fuel. Similarly, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory does not mention nuclear power in its "energy basics" definition.

In 1987, the Brundtland Commission (WCED) classified fission reactors that produce more fissile nuclear fuel than they consume (breeder reactors, and if developed, fusion power) among conventional renewable energy sources, such as solar power and hydropower. The American Petroleum Institute does not consider conventional nuclear fission renewable, but considers breeder reactor nuclear fuel renewable and sustainable, and while conventional fission leads to waste streams that remain a concern for millennia, the waste from efficiently recycled spent fuel requires a more limited storage supervision period of about thousand years. The monitoring and storage of radioactive waste products is also required upon the use of other renewable energy sources, such as geothermal energy.

Definitions of renewable energy

Renewable energy flows involve natural phenomena, which with the exception of tidal power, ultimately derive their energy from the sun (a natural fusion reactor) or from geothermal energy, which is heat derived in greatest part from that which is generated in the earth from the decay of radioactive isotopes, as the International Energy Agency explains:

Renewable energy is derived from natural processes that are replenished constantly. In its various forms, it derives directly from the sun, or from heat generated deep within the earth. Included in the definition is electricity and heat generated from sunlight, wind, oceans, hydropower, biomass, geothermal resources, and biofuels and hydrogen derived from renewable resources.

Renewable energy resources exist over wide geographical areas, in contrast to other energy sources, which are concentrated in a limited number of countries.

In ISO 13602-1:2002, a renewable resource is defined as "a natural resource for which the ratio of the creation of the natural resource to the output of that resource from nature to the technosphere is equal to or greater than one".

Conventional fission, breeder reactors as renewable

Nuclear fission reactors are a natural energy phenomenon, having naturally formed on earth in times past, for example a natural nuclear fission reactor which ran for thousands of years in present-day Oklo Gabon was discovered in the 1970s. It ran for a few hundred thousand years, averaging 100 kW of thermal power during that time.

Conventional, human manufactured, nuclear fission power stations largely use uranium, a common metal found in seawater, and in rocks all over the world, as its primary source of fuel. Uranium-235 "burnt" in conventional reactors, without fuel recycling, is a non-renewable resource, and if used at present rates would eventually be exhausted.

A cutaway model of the 2nd most powerful presently operating fast breeder reactor in the world. The (BN-600), at 600 MW of nameplate capacity is equivalent in power output to a natural gas CCGT. It dispatches 560 MW to the Middle Urals power grid. Construction of a second breeder reactor, the BN-800 reactor was completed in 2014.

This is also somewhat similar to the situation with a commonly classified renewable source, geothermal energy, a form of energy derived from the natural nuclear decay of the large, but nonetheless finite supply of uranium, thorium and potassium-40 present within the Earth's crust, and due to the nuclear decay process, this renewable energy source will also eventually run out of fuel. As too will the Sun, and be exhausted.

Nuclear fission involving breeder reactors, a reactor which breeds more fissile fuel than they consume and thereby has a breeding ratio for fissile fuel higher than 1 thus has a stronger case for being considered a renewable resource than conventional fission reactors. Breeder reactors would constantly replenish the available supply of nuclear fuel by converting fertile materials, such as uranium-238 and thorium, into fissile isotopes of plutonium or uranium-233, respectively. Fertile materials are also nonrenewable, but their supply on Earth is extremely large, with a supply timeline greater than geothermal energy. In a closed nuclear fuel cycle utilizing breeder reactors, nuclear fuel could therefore be considered renewable.

In 1983, physicist Bernard Cohen claimed that fast breeder reactors, fueled exclusively by natural uranium extracted from seawater, could supply energy at least as long as the sun's expected remaining lifespan of five billion years. This was based on calculations involving the geological cycles of erosion, subduction, and uplift, leading to humans consuming half of the total uranium in the Earth's crust at an annual usage rate of 6500 tonne/yr, which was enough to produce approximately 10 times the world's 1983 electricity consumption, and would reduce the concentration of uranium in the seas by 25%, resulting in an increase in the price of uranium of less than 25%.

Proportions of the isotopes, U-238 (blue) and U-235 (red) found in natural uranium, versus grades that are enriched. light water reactors and the natural uranium capable CANDU reactors, are primarily powered only by the U-235 component, failing to extract much energy from U-238. While by contrast uranium breeder reactors mostly use U-238/the primary constituent of natural uranium as their fuel.

Advancements at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Alabama, as published in a 2012 issue of the American Chemical Society, towards the extraction of uranium from seawater have focused on increasing the biodegradability of the process and reducing the projected cost of the metal if it was extracted from the sea on an industrial scale. The researchers' improvements include using electrospun Shrimp shell Chitin mats that are more effective at absorbing uranium when compared to the prior record setting Japanese method of using plastic amidoxime nets. As of 2013 only a few kilograms (picture available) of uranium have been extracted from the ocean in pilot programs and it is also believed that the uranium extracted on an industrial scale from the seawater would constantly be replenished from uranium leached from the ocean floor, maintaining the seawater concentration at a stable level. In 2014, with the advances made in the efficiency of seawater uranium extraction, a paper in the journal of Marine Science & Engineering suggests that with, light water reactors as its target, the process would be economically competitive if implemented on a large scale. In 2016 the global effort in the field of research was the subject of a special issue in the journal of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.

In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development(WCED), an organization independent from, but created by, the United Nations, published Our Common Future, in which a particular subset of presently operating nuclear fission technologies, and nuclear fusion were both classified as renewable. That is, fission reactors that produce more fissile fuel than they consume - breeder reactors, and when it is developed, fusion power, are both classified within the same category as conventional renewable energy sources, such as solar and falling water.

Presently, as of 2014, only 2 breeder reactors are producing industrial quantities of electricity, the BN-600 and BN-800. The retired French Phénix reactor also demonstrated a greater than one breeding ratio and operated for ~30 years, producing power when Our Common Future was published in 1987.

To fulfill the conditions required for a nuclear renewable energy concept, one has to explore a combination of processes going from the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle to the fuel production and the energy conversion using specific fluid fuels and reactors, as reported by Degueldre et al (2019). Extraction of uranium from a diluted fluid ore such as seawater has been studied in various countries worldwide. This extraction should be carried out parsimoniously, as suggested by Degueldre (2017). An extraction rate of kilotons of U per year over centuries would not modify significantly the equilibrium concentration of uranium in the oceans (3.3 ppb). This equilibrium results from the input of 10 kilotons of U per year by river waters and its scavenging on the sea floor from the 1.37 exatons of water in the oceans. For a renewable uranium extraction, the use of a specific biomass material is suggested to adsorb uranium and subsequently other transition metals. The uranium loading on the biomass would be around 100 mg per kg. After contact time, the loaded material would be dried and burned (CO2 neutral) with heat conversion into electricity.e.g. The uranium ‘burning’ in a molten salt fast reactor helps to optimize the energy conversion by burning all actinide isotopes with an excellent yield for producing a maximum amount of thermal energy from fission and converting it into electricity. This optimisation can be reached by reducing the moderation and the fission product concentration in the liquid fuel/coolant. These effects can be achieved by using a maximum amount of actinides and a minimum amount of alkaline/earth alkaline elements yielding a harder neutron spectrum. Under these optimal conditions the consumption of natural uranium would be 7 tons per year and per gigawatt (GW) of produced electricity.e.g. The coupling of uranium extraction from the sea and its optimal utilisation in a molten salt fast reactor should allow nuclear energy to gain the label renewable. In addition, the amount of seawater used by a nuclear power plant to cool the last coolant fluid and the turbine would be ∼2.1 giga tons per year for a fast molten salt reactor, corresponding to 7 tons of natural uranium extractable per year. This practice justifies the label renewable.

Fusion fuel supply

If it is developed, fusion power would provide more energy for a given weight of fuel than any fuel-consuming energy source currently in use, and the fuel itself (primarily deuterium) exists abundantly in the Earth's ocean: about 1 in 6500 hydrogen (H) atoms in seawater (H2O) is deuterium in the form of (semi-heavy water). Although this may seem a low proportion (about 0.015%), because nuclear fusion reactions are so much more energetic than chemical combustion and seawater is easier to access and more plentiful than fossil fuels, fusion could potentially supply the world's energy needs for millions of years.

In the deuterium + lithium fusion fuel cycle, 60 million years is the estimated supply lifespan of this fusion power, if it is possible to extract all the lithium from seawater, assuming current (2004) world energy consumption. While in the second easiest fusion power fuel cycle, the deuterium + deuterium burn, assuming all of the deuterium in seawater was extracted and used, there is an estimated 150 billion years of fuel, with this again, assuming current (2004) world energy consumption.

Legislation in the United States

If nuclear power were classified as renewable energy (or as low-carbon energy), additional government support would be available in more jurisdictions, and utilities could include nuclear power in their effort to comply with Renewable portfolio standard (RES).

In 2009, the State of Utah passed the "Renewable Energy Development Act" which in part defined nuclear power as a form of renewable energy.

 

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Natural resource

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

The rainforest in Fatu-Hiva, in the Marquesas Islands, is an example of an undisturbed natural resource. Forest provides timber for humans, food, water and shelter for the flora and fauna tribes and animals. The nutrient cycle between organisms form food chains and foster a biodiversity of species.
 
The Carson Fall in Mount Kinabalu, Malaysia is an example of undisturbed natural resources. Waterfalls provide spring water for humans, animals and plants for survival and also habitat for marine organisms. The water current can be used to turn turbines for hydroelectric generation.
The ocean is an example of a natural resource. Ocean waves can be used to generate wave power, a renewable energy source. Ocean water is important for salt production, desalination, and providing habitat for deep-water fishes. There is biodiversity of marine species in the sea where nutrient cycles are common.
A picture of the Udachnaya pipe, an open-pit diamond mine in Siberia. An example of a non-renewable natural resource.

Natural resources are resources that exist without any actions of humankind. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. On Earth, it includes sunlight, atmosphere, water, land, all minerals along with all vegetation, and animal life.[1][failed verification][2][3][4] Natural resources can be part of our natural heritage or protected in nature reserves.

Particular areas (such as the rainforest in Fatu-Hiva) often feature biodiversity and geodiversity in their ecosystems. Natural resources may be classified in different ways. Natural resources are materials and components (something that can be used) that can be found within the environment. Every man-made product is composed of natural resources (at its fundamental level). A natural resource may exist as a separate entity such as fresh water, air, as well as any living organism such as a fish, or it may exist in an alternate form that must be processed to obtain the resource such as metal ores, rare-earth elements, petroleum, and most forms of energy.

There is much debate worldwide over natural-resource allocations. This is particularly true during periods of increasing scarcity and shortages (depletion and overconsumption of resources).

Classification

There are various methods of categorizing natural resources. These include the source of origin, stage of development, and by their renewability.

On the basis of origin, natural resources may be divided into two types:

Considering their stage of development, natural resources may be referred to in the following ways:

  • Potential resources — Potential resources are those that may be used in the future—for example, petroleum in sedimentary rocks that, until drilled out and put to use remains a potential resource
  • Actual resources — Those resources that have been surveyed, quantified and qualified, and are currently used in development, such as wood processing, and are typically dependent on technology
  • Reserve resources — The part of an actual resource that can be developed profitably in the future
  • Stock resources — Those that have been surveyed, but cannot be used due to lack of technology—for example, hydrogen

On the basis of recovery rate, natural resources can be categorized as follows:

  • Renewable resources — Renewable resources can be replenished naturally. Some of these resources, like sunlight, air, wind, water, etc. are continuously available and their quantities are not noticeably affected by human consumption. Though many renewable resources do not have such a rapid recovery rate, these resources are susceptible to depletion by over-use. Resources from a human use perspective are classified as renewable so long as the rate of replenishment/recovery exceeds that of the rate of consumption. They replenish easily compared to non-renewable resources.
  • Non-renewable resources – Non-renewable resources either form slowly or do not naturally form in the environment. Minerals are the most common resource included in this category. From the human perspective, resources are non-renewable when their rate of consumption exceeds the rate of replenishment/recovery; a good example of this are fossil fuels, which are in this category because their rate of formation is extremely slow (potentially millions of years), meaning they are considered non-renewable. Some resources naturally deplete in amount without human interference, the most notable of these being radio-active elements such as uranium, which naturally decay into heavy metals. Of these, the metallic minerals can be re-used by recycling them,[5] but coal and petroleum cannot be recycled.[6] Once they are completely used they take millions of years to replenish.

Extraction

Resource extraction involves any activity that withdraws resources from nature. This can range in scale from the traditional use of preindustrial societies to global industry. Extractive industries are, along with agriculture, the basis of the primary sector of the economy. Extraction produces raw material, which is then processed to add value. Examples of extractive industries are hunting, trapping, mining, oil and gas drilling, and forestry. Natural resources can add substantial amounts to a country's wealth; however, a sudden inflow of money caused by a resource boom can create social problems including inflation harming other industries ("Dutch disease") and corruption, leading to inequality and underdevelopment, this is known as the "resource curse".

Extractive industries represent a large growing activity in many less-developed countries but the wealth generated does not always lead to sustainable and inclusive growth. People often accuse extractive industry businesses as acting only to maximize short-term value, implying that less-developed countries are vulnerable to powerful corporations. Alternatively, host governments are often assumed to be only maximizing immediate revenue. Researchers argue there are areas of common interest where development goals and business cross. These present opportunities for international governmental agencies to engage with the private sector and host governments through revenue management and expenditure accountability, infrastructure development, employment creation, skills and enterprise development, and impacts on children, especially girls and women. A strong civil society can play an important role in ensuring the effective management of natural resources. Norway can serve as a role model in this regard as it has good institutions and open and dynamic public debate with strong civil society actors that provide an effective checks and balances system for the government's management of extractive industries, such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global standard for the good governance of oil, gas and mineral resources. It seeks to address the key governance issues in the extractive sectors.

Depletion of resources

Wind is a natural resource that can be used to generate electricity, as with these 5 MW wind turbines in Thorntonbank Wind Farm 28 km (17 mi) off the coast of Belgium.

In recent years, the depletion of natural resources has become a major focus of governments and organizations such as the United Nations (UN). This is evident in the UN's Agenda 21 Section Two, which outlines the necessary steps for countries to take to sustain their natural resources. The depletion of natural resources is considered a sustainable development issue. The term sustainable development has many interpretations, most notably the Brundtland Commission's 'to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs'; however, in broad terms it is balancing the needs of the planet's people and species now and in the future. In regards to natural resources, depletion is of concern for sustainable development as it has the ability to degrade current environments and the potential to impact the needs of future generations.

"The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem, it will avail us little to solve all others."

Theodore Roosevelt

Depletion of natural resources is associated with social inequity. Considering most biodiversity are located in developing countries, depletion of this resource could result in losses of ecosystem services for these countries. Some view this depletion as a major source of social unrest and conflicts in developing nations.

At present, there is a particular concern for rainforest regions that hold most of the Earth's biodiversity. According to Nelson, deforestation and degradation affect 8.5% of the world's forests with 30% of the Earth's surface already cropped. If we consider that 80% of people rely on medicines obtained from plants and 3⁄4 of the world's prescription medicines have ingredients taken from plants, loss of the world's rainforests could result in a loss of finding more potential life-saving medicines.

The depletion of natural resources is caused by 'direct drivers of change' such as Mining, petroleum extraction, fishing, and forestry as well as 'indirect drivers of change' such as demography (e.g. population growth), economy, society, politics, and technology. The current practice of Agriculture is another factor causing depletion of natural resources. For example, the depletion of nutrients in the soil due to excessive use of nitrogen and desertification. The depletion of natural resources is a continuing concern for society. This is seen in the cited quote given by Theodore Roosevelt, a well-known conservationist and former United States president, who was opposed to unregulated natural resource extraction.

Protection

In 1982, the United Nations developed the World Charter for Nature, which recognized the need to protect nature from further depletion due to human activity. It states that measures must be taken at all societal levels, from international to individual, to protect nature. It outlines the need for sustainable use of natural resources and suggests that the protection of resources should be incorporated into national and international systems of law. To look at the importance of protecting natural resources further, the World Ethic of Sustainability, developed by the IUCN, WWF and the UNEP in 1990, set out eight values for sustainability, including the need to protect natural resources from depletion. Since the development of these documents, many measures have been taken to protect natural resources including establishment of the scientific field and practice of conservation biology and habitat conservation, respectively.

Conservation biology is the scientific study of the nature and status of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction. It is an interdisciplinary subject drawing on science, economics and the practice of natural resource management. The term conservation biology was introduced as the title of a conference held at the University of California, San Diego, in La Jolla, California, in 1978, organized by biologists Bruce A. Wilcox and Michael E. Soulé.

Habitat conservation is a land management practice that seeks to conserve, protect and restore habitat areas for wild plants and animals, especially conservation reliant species, and prevent their extinction, fragmentation or reduction in range.

Management

Natural resource management is a discipline in the management of natural resources such as land, water, soil, plants, and animals—with a particular focus on how management affects quality of life for present and future generations. Hence, sustainable development is followed according to judicial use of resources to supply both the present generation and future generations. The disciplines of fisheries, forestry, and wildlife are examples of large subdisciplines of natural resource management.

Management of natural resources involves identifying who has the right to use the resources, and who does not, for defining the boundaries of the resource. The resources may be managed by the users according to the rules governing when and how the resource is used depending on local condition or the resources may be managed by a governmental organization or other central authority.

A "...successful management of natural resources depends on freedom of speech, a dynamic and wide-ranging public debate through multiple independent media channels and an active civil society engaged in natural resource issues...", because of the nature of the shared resources the individuals who are affected by the rules can participate in setting or changing them. The users have rights to devise their own management institutions and plans under the recognition by the government. The right to resources includes land, water, fisheries and pastoral rights. The users or parties accountable to the users have to actively monitor and ensure the utilisation of the resource compliance with the rules and to impose penalty on those peoples who violate the rules. These conflicts are resolved in a quick and low cost manner by the local institution according to the seriousness and context of the offence. The global science-based platform to discuss natural resources management is the World Resources Forum, based in Switzerland.

Natural resources by country

Value of natural resources by country (in USD trillions), 2021
Country Value
Russia 79
United States 45
Saudi Arabia 34.4
Canada 33.2
Democratic Republic of Congo 24
China 23
Brazil 21.8
Australia 19.9
Venezuela 14.3
India 0.10

 

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