Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
shortages worldwide that will result in skyrocketing prices even for basic
commodities. However, his timing has been proven to be inaccurate;
population has grown, but the austere times of severe shortages they
envisioned had thankfully not materialized. Except in some remote regions
of Asia and Africa, adequate food supplies are still available. Then was
Malthus wrong? What Malthus did not fully take into account and what
effectively countered the predicted shortages thus far is technology or
human ingenuity. The same winning trait that outwitted the
Neanderthals
,
tamed fire, and developed tools to conquer nature in the dawn of human
civilization has continued on, unabated, in modern times.
Great strides have been made in high-yield agricultural technology, in
post-harvest management of produce, as well as in packaging and
distribution of food. This has allowed the inconceivable achievement of
producing increasingly more food despite the depleting acreage of arable
agricultural land. Science and technology has thus far allowed humankind
to be a step ahead of Malthus's ominous prediction. Material consumption
too has become increasingly efficient across the board, with substitution for
scarce materials, design improvements to use less of the more expensive
materials, and learning to better locate new ore reserves. But can we always
count on technology to keep us a step ahead of a Malthusian catastrophe?
In the short term, it is probably so. But it cannot be assured over long
periods of time as there are inherent limits to improving a system using
progressively better technologies (Brown, 2009; Evans, 2009). The limit
will probably be due to either the shortage of nonrenewable resources
neededtofueltheindustrialmachineryorthepollutionloadassociatedwith
more sophisticated technologies that have to be practiced at high intensity.
1.2.1 Materials of Construction
The dominant materials in demand worldwide are materials of construction
including wood, gravel, clay, and aggregate, followed by of course the fossil
fuel materials. Several metals are in high-volume use; iron is the most
important of these followed by aluminum, copper, zinc, manganese,
chromium, nickel, titanium, and lead. As opposed to these, there are metals
that are used in very small quantities but are nevertheless indispensable in
high-technology applications, especially in the energy industry.
Being a renewable material, the availability of hardwood for construction
can be relied on as long as enough acreage is available for forestry
