Editing Resource depletion (section)

==Resource scarcity as a moral problem==
[[File:Greed Isn't Green - RNC Tampa 2012.jpg|thumb|Protestors carry sign stating "Greed isn't green, Earth is not for sale" against resource depletion and climate change]]

Researchers who produced an update of the [[Club of Rome]]'s [[The Limits to Growth|''Limits to Growth'']] report find that many people deny the existence of the problem of [[scarcity]], including many leading scientists and politicians.<ref>Meadows, D. & Randers, J. & Meadows, D. 2004 A synopsis. {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20101227213430/http://www.mnforsustain.org/meadows_limits_to_growth_30_year_update_2004.htm Limits to growth, the 30-years update]}}.</ref> This may be due, for example, to an unwillingness to change one's own consumption patterns or to share scarce natural resources more equally, or to a psychological defence mechanism.

The scarcity of resources raises a central moral problem concerning the distribution and allocation of natural resources. Competition means that the most advanced get the most resources, which often means the developed West. The problem here is that the West has developed partly through colonial slave labour and violence, and partly through protectionist policies, which together have left many other, non-Western countries underdeveloped.<ref>see Hall, S. 2005 Identiteetti. Tampere, Finland: Vastapaino</ref> 

In the future, international cooperation in sharing scarce resources will become increasingly important. Where scarcity is concentrated on the non-renewable resources that play the most important role in meeting needs, the most essential element for the realisation of human rights is an adequate and equitable allocation of scarcity. [[Economic inequality|Inequality]], taken to its extreme, causes intense discontent, which can lead to social unrest and even armed conflict. Many experts believe that ensuring equitable development is the only sure way to a peaceful distribution of scarcity.{{Cn|date=April 2024}}

Another approach to resource depletion is a combined process of de-resourcification and resourcification. Where one strives to put an end to the social processes of turning unsustainable things into resources, for example, non-renewable natural resources, and the other strives to instead develop processes of turning sustainable things into resources, for example, renewable human resources.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Corvellec |first1=Hervé |last2=Paulsson |first2=Alexander |date=2023-03-01 |title=Resource shifting: Resourcification and de-resourcification for degrowth |journal=Ecological Economics |language=en |volume=205 |pages=107703 |doi=10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107703 |s2cid=254388285 |issn=0921-8009|doi-access=free |bibcode=2023EcoEc.20507703C }}</ref>