Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
Hence, natural biodiversity cannot be reduced to an aggregation of assets because
everything is connected to everything else. At most, biotic capital should be re-
garded as a single entity and what should be conserved is the entire web of life
(with all its interlinkages). This is why using the term natural capital to describe
biotic endowment is at least questionable.
With regards to abiotic resources, one may think that mineral geodiversity has a
lower level of interconnections than the biodiversity of ecosystems and thus substi-
tutability is perfectly possible. Yet when minerals enter the technosphere and are
converted into goods, the “chemodiversity” radically increases, meaning that any
substitution of one type with another is in many cases restricted. Present techno-
logy is using almost all the elements of the periodic table; and far from reducing
their use, new applications appear incessantly, thus hampering the possibilities of
substitution. There is no “Second Iron Age ahead” as Skinner (1976) proposed be-
cause there are so many metals and minerals used in today's industry that alloys
of the most common metals such as Fe;Al;Ti;Mg; etc. can simply not replace the
immense number of electronic and chemical applications that new technologies are
continuously driving. As a matter of fact, the current Age could be named “The
Age of the Periodic Table”.
Additionally and somewhat ill-advisedly, non-renewable resources are always
used by society to restore ecosystems. The contrary never occurs. Using the words
of an accountant, non-renewable capital is used to renew ecosystem capital. The
former, in the form of minerals, is not only finite and irreplaceable but also unde-
termined and undervalued. The perceived degree of substitutability greatly affects
how different natural resources are evaluated. Nature shows different degrees of re-
coverability and replaceability which humankind judges according to its own values.
Minerals are typically considered to be less valuable than biotic materials even if the
latter can be, albeit slowly, restored. The overriding mentality is that ecosystems
are subject to irrevocable death whilst minerals are not. Living entities cannot be
resurrected and minerals don't die, they are “only” irreversibly dispersed. Further-
more, with su
cient energy they could, theoretically, be recovered once again.
Yet in practical terms, mineral capital is non-restorable; as even if materials do
not disappear they degrade into lower quality substances. Irreversible depletion is
a main feature of mineral capital and as such, society is confronted by the choice
between present and future satisfaction (Gray, 1913).
From the above, one can state that the term “mineral capital” and its related
accountant's axiom of keeping it intact is conceptually incorrect. This is because
mineral capital always depreciates and geodiversity (which would allow for the ex-
changeability among minerals) is hampered by chemodiversity. As such it is more
correct to use “mineral endowment” instead of “mineral capital”. However, the latter
is so widely spread, that even the authors use it as a synonym for the former.
In conclusion, the aforementioned ideas together with additional reflections that
invalidate the concept of natural capital as an analogy for its manmade counterpart
Search WWH ::
Custom Search