Eternal Use of Resources for Our Well-being

Abstract

It has been pointed out for some time that sooner or later resources will be exhausted irrespective of their renewability. When this happens, the present humanosphere could not sustain itself. Cyclic use of resources, while generating no environmental loads and inflicting no social injustice, may be a part of the solution. The utmost economies in using resources as well as stockpiling and right-sizing should be also observed. Once incorporated into the humanosphere, the resources must be utilized thoroughly. Based on these, three principles and six practices for prolonging resource use are given. A peaceful continuation of the humanosphere hinges upon our success in adopting the appropriate way of distributing resources. In order to achieve this, we first need to share core values according to which the order of priority among human needs is determined. Resources are considered as global commons and allotted based on the global limits and on the material and energy requirements/disposal for each need. From this point of view, contentment and moderation appear to be important, and four core values are proposed. Recognizing the difficulty of realizing stable sociogeochemical circulations, humans who succeed in attaining this feast have been compared to an emergence of a new human species, Homo sapiotempus.