Reconciling Abundance and Scarcity Theories

In talking about resources and conflict we have come across two different models for the relationship between the two. The two models are diametrically opposed. One identifies scarcity as the basis of conflict, while the other identifies abundance as the cause. This blog post serves as an overview of the main opinions we have read representing each camp and the concepts associated with them. At the end it will highlight an interesting distinction between the camps which Hendrix and Salehyan suggest can reconcile them.

Those in the scarcity camp theorize that competition over scarce resources is what leads to conflict. However, Thomas Homer-Dixon argues that there is not simply a straight line from scarcity to conflict. Rather, there are two mechanisms that result from resource scarcity and those mechanisms are what eventually lead to conflict. First, he describes ecological marginalization. This is a process through which people living in resource-poor areas are driven to relocate to other areas with similar scarcity. As resources dry up in the first area, they move to other resource-poor areas, which ends up putting more stress on the few resources available and causing tension between populations. Second, Homer-Dixon describes the concept of resource capture. This is when one group captures the resource for themselves, denying access to others. This can obviously lead to resentment and conflict from disempowered groups.

Colin Kahl represents the abundance camp with his Honey-Pot Theory. The theory states that areas that are rich in resources cause conflict as many groups try to gain access to and control the resource for themselves. The underlying motive that drives this model is greed. Those in the abundance camp also make reference to the related concept of resource curse. Resource curse refers to the negative impacts resource rich areas can feel from their ostensible windfalls. First, governments in such areas may let their economies become too reliant on their single resource, which leaves them vulnerable to volatile markets. Second, if governments are able to collect revenue primarily from a resource they control, they are less dependent on taxes from the populace and therefore less accountable to the people. In a similar vein, a government with more resources and less accountability can become rife with corruption.

As we have seen, there are two distinct and opposing models of conflict. One emphasizes scarcity and the other abundance as the basis of conflict. The positions are antithetical by definition, and it is hard to see a way to reconcile the two views. Hendrix and Salehyan, however, posit a very interesting way to see both views as correct.

Hendrix and Salehyan’s article “Climate change, rainfall, and social conflict in Africa” offers a way of viewing in a way so they are both correct. They suggest that the two camps can be reconciled by noting that the arguments from the scarcity camp focus on basic needs like food and water while arguments from the abundance camp are dealing with “lucrative commodities” like gems and oil.

One way to test whether Hendrix and Salehyan’s suggestion holds weight is to see whether each camp’s argument still makes sense when referring to the other camp’s resources. Is it intuitively true that a scarcity of commodities like gems and oil can cause conflict in the same way that a scarcity of food and water does? It seems that it would depend on exactly what resource was being discussed. Gemstones and oil, the two commodities specifically mentioned by Hendrix and Salehyan, serve wildly different purposes, and their scarcity would provoke different reactions. It seems clear that a scarcity of gemstones would not cause the same type of conflict that a scarcity of oil would produce, as oil is a modern necessity and gemstones a luxury.

Looking to the abundance camp, is it intuitively true that an abundance of food and water could cause conflict the way abundance of oil or gemstones could? The type of conflict we see associated with abundance theory, which is motivated by greed and leads to resource curse, does not seem to follow. For one thing, while gemstones or oil may only be found in certain parts of the world, food and water can be produced anywhere and their production is not limited in the same way it is for certain commodities.

The arguments of the scarcity camp don’t necessarily fall apart when addressing resources other than basic needs. However, the scarcity model’s utility seems to depend on exactly what resource is being talked about. On the other hand, the arguments of the abundance camp seem to hold true only for commodities, and not for basic needs. While the separation between the two is not necessarily as clear cut as Hendrix and Salehyan make it out to be, their suggestion for how to reconcile the two camps succeeds in a limited sense. It certainly provides another way to view the divide between the scarcity and abundance models.

What shocks modern day America?

After reading Homer-Dixon’s, Kahl’s, Hendrix’s and Thiesen’s thoughts on the connection between the environment and conflict, I felt certain about one thing: sudden scarcities or abundances of natural resources provoke a social reaction, seemingly one of conflict. One thing common in these studies was that they were focused on developing countries. Particularly while reading Hendrix’s newfound correlation between rainfall and social conflict in sub-Saharan Africa, I could not help but wonder if there was a similar event in third-world countries such as our own America that would illicit a similar response.

I do not think a drought or a sudden abundance of water would affect America the same way it does sub-Saharan Africa. When I attempt to think of a resource that Americans get easily frustrated about, the first thing that comes to mind is gas for our beloved cars. Although I was fortunate enough to be stranded in New Orleans during Hurricane Sandy, far away from any chaos, I had many conversations with my mother who was at home on Long Island, New York. She told me about gas shortages and that the lines for the gas pumps were longer than the streets. In the news I recall seeing stories of fights and even one about a gun being pulled at a crowded station. In places such as the suburban sprawl of the New York metropolitan area, people strongly rely on their cars. They use them to get to work, to school, to grocery stores and doctors appointments. Without a car, most people on Long Island feel stranded and helpless. After all these years of development, this type of suburbia is rampant in America and other countries like it. I believe a sudden shortage of gas would elicit some type of social conflict in the same way that rainfall did in Hendrix’s study, although not likely to the same extreme.

            One difference between America and sub-Saharan Africa is the way in which we receive our resources. Other than water, most Americans get their food and beverages away from home. If there is an abundant shortage of rain causing a shortage in food, we mostly just see it as a raise in prices. However, getting to work is another story. Almost nine in ten Americans drive to work, and nearly all of them are alone. When people see a threat to their gas, they see a threat to their source of income and their connection to food. They also see at threat to their comforts in life, such as their after school activities or nights out on the town. In a way, gas to their cars is a factor in their survival. In my opinion, only a water shortage could cause as immediate of a conflict as a gas shortage, and even so – would gas not be necessary to distribute emergency water rations if such a conflict were to arise?

In sub-Saharan Africa, most people do not have a car nor do they use one to get to work or grocery stores. Their connection to food, water, and income is much more direct and the effects of a shortage are felt much quicker as well as stronger. The conflict here would certainly be much more serious and have dire consequences, and is also guaranteed to happen much more often (for now at least).

Hendrix found that an abundance of rainfall was more directly correlated with violent conflict than a shortage was. Would it be this way with oil in America as well? Intuitively, I do not think so… But if I remember anything from economics, an abundance of oil would definitely create a drop in prices. If the drop was big enough would people surge to the gas pumps to fill up extra containers, seeing an opportunity they should not miss? Would that idea be so common that there would be fights over it? Somehow, I do not think so. In class discussion we wondered if a surge in rainfall caused rebellion leaders to feel more comfortable starting conflict because their soldiers would be well-quenched. Here we find another difference between sub-Saharan Africa and America: American society is much more stable in terms of poverty, sickness, ethnic conflict and civilian vs. government conflict. There are currently no known rebellion groups in America that are a large enough threat to the government to the point that gas would have an effect on their activities, and no known ongoing violent wars between different groups. A drop in gas prices and thus a perceived surge in gas availability would not cause the same advantage-taking reaction in America.

            As we can see, although people in developed countries are human and have responses to threats to their survival, there is a difference between the type of conflict and the seriousness of it. In sub-Saharan Africa, conflict caused by shocks in resource abundance has been and will be responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, if not millions. So far in America, gas shortage has led to a small amount of deaths and a lot of frustrated, yelling people in the street. Worse yet, rain shocks in Africa are much more common than gas shocks in America and will only increase as time goes on and climate change accelerates. The biggest and most important question is: What does everyone’s future hold? How will climate change affect us all, no matter how different our current lives?

A Critique of Deudney's Argument

In his essay “The Case against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security,” Daniel Deudney argues that while there are numerous links between national security and the degradation of the environment, environmental degradation is not a threat to national security. Deudney does not state, however, that there are not links between the environment and national security; he merely states that environmental issues do not act as a threat to national security. He believes that military conflict and degradation are related in that conflict leads to the consumption of resources, is directly destructive of the environment, and generates waste and pollution that act as threats to environmental quality.  

Deudney believes that violence and environmental degradation are often connected simply because both cause a reduction in human wellbeing. However, he disagrees with this connection simply because many things are harmful to human wellbeing but are still not classified as security threats. These include natural disasters, crime, and disease. Anything that is bad cannot simply be defined as an issue of security, Deudney argues. He also argues that environmental threats can never be simply “national” issues merely because they are not limited by political boundaries and restricted to just one nation. Environmental issues, such as air pollution and climate change, know no boundaries and often involve more than just one state. Deudney also argues that issues of national security are almost always intentional; after all, states go to war for a reason. On the contrary, issues of environmental degradation are almost never intentional; rather, they are often merely side effects of human actions that are designed to increase human welfare. It is such that Deudney argues that we do not attempt to frame environmental issues as issues of national security. 

I would like to refute Deudney’s arguments on the environment and national security by pointing out that environmental issues are broad and far-reaching in scope and can cause more problems than we expect. One important environmental issue we face today is conflict over scarce resources, one of the most vital being freshwater. Deudney fails to realize that conflict over important resources such as water can indeed translate into issues of national security, especially in politically tenuous areas of the world such as the Middle East. Because water is poorly distributed between countries in this region of the world—and because countries in this region have traditionally had disharmonious relationships with each other—the potential for military conflict over water poses a threat to national security. Because environmental issues are not limited geographically as political and economic ones are, they may cause conflict among neighboring countries that acts as a threat to national security. 

Deudney also fails to realize that with such pressing environmental issues at hand, we cannot conclude that national security will remain entirely unaffected. The potential for environmental degradation to generate serious consequences leaves us wondering what aspect of our lives will be the first to deteriorate. With the inevitable acceleration of climate change, the depletion of key resources, and the worsening of air quality comes the concern that our societies may not hold up for much longer. If environmental issues become serious enough to cause societal collapse, they will undoubtedly become issues of national security as well. If we run out of resources and have no way of sustaining ourselves, the countries of the world will soon experience conflict with each other over who gets access to what resources. The potential for a global scramble to collect scarce resources is pressing enough for us to believe that environmental threats may one day threaten the security of the world’s nations. 

Finally, I would like to critique Deudney’s argument by stating that it is in our best interest to treat environmental issues as issues of national security. Because a country’s primary concern is protecting the wellbeing and security of its people, any issue that threatens these factors is one to be treated as vital. Framing the environment as an issue of national security may be enough to motivate countries to take further action on correcting these problems. On the downside, this attitude may also lead to further conflict between states. For instance, if one state generates pollution that has a negative impact on an adjacent state, the affected state may view this threat as a threat to its national security. Because national security is the most important concern facing all states, the affected state may decide to go into armed conflict with the other state simply because they view this environmental threat as a threat to their security. While this may make any linkage between the environment and national security sound unappealing, the mere possibility of this conflict should incentivize a more rigorous addressing of environmental issues. If countries understand that the environmental issues they face may soon plunge them into military conflict, they will treat these problems as more serious and do anything they can to mitigate them.

Resources not the problem in resource curse

The resource curse has always been a very compelling argument for me. The most persuasive part of the argument is when speaking about how the government is affected by the presence of non-essential resources. Proponents of the resource curse argue that because of resources like oil, diamonds and gold governments become corrupt, are no longer accountable to their people and cannot provide adequate law enforcement. All of these systems come out of the fact that the government does not need taxes (because they get their money from the resource), they are unable to track a vast resource and have a weakened bureaucracy when revenues come from oil and not taxes.

In a developing nation, many of these things are present without a resource like oil. However, when a state has oil these challenges are augmented. I do not believe that resource curse is destiny for developing countries with oil and diamond, but I do believe it makes a destiny like this much more viable. Developing governments need to focus on building up their people and the standard of living in their state. They need to focus on providing a strong rule of law, education, health services and fair and frequent elections. When governments are not accountable to their people through taxes, these things no longer become a priority.

Ross explained how transparency is an adequate fix for this type of curse, but transparency is only the beginning. The government needs to shift its priorities and economy away from exporting the resource to provide people the freedoms that must come before development. Resources are not the reason for lack of development, but they are a barrier. They give the governments an excuse to not develop and provide other sorts of rights to the people – rights needed to move from a developing nation to a developed nation.

Although Mitchell’s argument was an interesting twit by coupling democracy and oil together, for many developing nations it does not seem valid. For instance, he states “the transformation of oil into large and unaccountable government incomes is not a cause of the problem of democracy and oil, but the outcome of particular ways of engineering political relations out of flows of energy” (5). This quote doesn't seem to adequately describe the plight of developing countries in seeking democracy and development. Failing to manage the oil well happens because there is a lack of democracy. A lack of democracy comes from the refusal of the government to provide certain freedoms to their people. One reason for this refusal can be because of the resources that the state has. Although this is circular logic, there is not a way to break this chain until the governments stop glorifying the resources, and start working for the people. The resource curse in its simplest form is governments valuing resources over their own people. Resources are not the problem in the resource curse, replace oil with anything -- but if the government favors that over its people, it could become the "puppy curse" or the "approval from stronger nations curse." Until this mindset shifts, nothing will change.  

The Windup Girl GM food

Earlier today I just took a test in AREC 365, and one of the topics dealt with GMOs. GMOs is obviously a major theme in the book and I noted some of the things I learned in class went along with Bacigalupi’s crazy world. It is interesting to know that already GM food has been tweaked so that genes from plants, insects, animals, and fish can be crossed in food, and when you realize how the coding sequence can be altered to put a gene from an insect in a food like wheat, you can think that it is more than likely for this science to go much further; the windup girl seems not too far away.

We also read about why we would need GMOs to adopt to climate change and diseases such as stem rust of wheat which is threatening areas of Asia and points out how new varieties of crops can be created quickly to adapt to wild climate change. For example things like changing the way rice and wheat preform photosynthesis has the possibility to be changed threw bioengineering which will let them like in hotter and dryer areas.

Anyways with the recent UN report that came out on climate change, it seems that it may very well be necessary for places like Europe and more of Asia to not only adopt GM foods, but to start developing them so that the science behind them can evolve and bring forth foods that are able to withstand climate change, disease, and to increase yields in crops to feed a growing world population.

I believe this will happen and our generation will see an increase in agricultural biotechnology corporations. However if climate change starts to rapidly alter conditions on the planet like The Windup Girl, I don’t believe we’ll be seeing any type to GM humans or cyborgs, or see these corporations taking over the world with private armies or what have you.

Also, I know that there are several concerns dealing with GM crops most notably in conjunction with the book, a possibly for them to promote diseases that are immune to antibiotics like the plague in The Windup Girl, and with human and insect genes being put into crops, viruses could be formed that our immune system can’t handle, although I can’t really see a possible real world connection between GM crops being highly susceptible to disease themselves, as it is in the book, if it is so easy to alter the genes of plants.

As I previously said, I do believe that we will see a rise in agricultural biotechnology, but I don’t believe that something like world trade will collapse do to something like the free market vs. suitability, I think it could possibly have the opposite effect in the future rather than certain places like Thailand to reject world trade and survive by closing borders to keep its sovereignty and to welcome an embargo, but then again maybe I need to change my perspective to a developing country and what effect climate change may have, and if oil gets too expensive for my country to purchase such as Thailand, then what? Possible economic collapse with famine and drought maybe. It would be interesting if we could step in the book and see how life changed in the US because I assume it would be nothing similar to that of Thailand and that the use of technology would very well still be widespread, running off maybe giant elephants, solar panels, and nuclear power if necessary. In any event, I think that the human race will be able to adapt to climate change, similar to how they did in The Windup girl with GM foods, but don’t think we are just going to one day see oil disappear and see slavery and cyborgs along with it.

The Windup Girl: an Allegory for Modern-Day Environmental Issues

Paolo Bacigalupi’s novel The Windup Girl represents an allegory for modern day environmental issues, particularly in the Global South. While the novel falls under the genre of science fiction, there is something frighteningly real about the world that Bacigalupi creates in the novel. With the depletion of carbon fuel sources, the acceleration of climate change, and genetic engineering running rampant, Bacigalupi envisions a world in which environmental issues control every facet of life. Much like reality, the novel portrays high incidences of governmental corruption in the Global South, one such incidence being the kidnapping and subsequent murdering of Jaidee’s wife by the “white shirts.” From an allegorical standpoint, the white shirts represent corrupt governments in the Global South that exploit their citizens solely for material gain. The white shirts act as an important arm of the Environment Ministry and show the reader just how much of life is controlled by the novel’s current state of the environment. The world that Bacigalupi creates may seem fictional—but such a world is not entirely out of the realm of possibility. Should environmental issues persist as they are, such a world may not be that far off from reality.

The environmental issues we face are far more serious than they appear. While issues such as climate change and ozone depletion have certainly rose to the forefront in recent years, the threats that these issue pose seem to occur more “under the radar” than we would expect. Climate change is an issue that magnifies slowly over time; its effects are not felt immediately but rather far into the future. It is easy to write off such an issue when its impacts do not occur all at once, and as such, the environment does not play as strong a role in our lives as it should. Bacigalupi defies this logic and suggests that by the 23^rd century, environmental issues may control all aspects of our lives—especially those living in the Global South. We can infer that Bacigalupi sees environmental issues as much more pertinent in the developing world than in the developed world, as demonstrated by his choice to set the novel in Thailand. While the world that he creates may seem to be a bit farfetched, such possibilities are not entirely fictional, and we may soon realize this truth if we continue degrading the environment as we are.

Humanity may face a grim future if we do not reverse the impacts we have had on the environment. Bacigalupi agrees with this fact. One key aspect of the world that he envisions is the importance of energy as a driving force in society. Companies such as AgriGen, PurCal, and RedStar control gigajoules of energy and are known as “calorie companies.” It is interesting that Bacigalupi chose to name these entities “calorie companies” and not merely “energy companies.” Calories represent units of energy found in the food that we eat. In that way, Bacigalupi draws a comparison between food and energy. In essence, he suggests that in the future, energy could become synonymous with food. We need food to survive; could energy become as important a need as food in the near future? Using this connection, Bacigalupi shows us how environmental issues may come to control every aspect of our lives should we continue to degrade the environment as we are.

I would like to conclude by stating that the world Bacigalupi envisions is not by any means impossible. The environmental issues we face are serious and they are far-reaching. They will not be solved quickly or easily. Climate change threatens coastal communities via sea level rise, air pollution tarnishes the air we breathe, and ozone depletion threatens public health via increasing skin cancer rates. The current dwindling of energy supplies has left us wondering where we will turn when fossil fuels run out. With such serious issues on our hands, we simply cannot conclude that this fictional world will never become a reality. While environmental issues do not yet control every aspect of our lives, Bacigalupi sees a future where they will. We can only hope that the work we do today will somehow manage to prevent total catastrophe before it is too late.