Two talks at the TED conference this year formed, back to back, a sort of debate about the future of our planet. First, Paul Gilding gave a talk entitled “The Earth Is Full,” about how we are using up all Earth’s resources, with possibly devastating consequences. Next, X Prize creator Peter Diamandis gave a presentation entitled “Abundance,” about how we will invent innovative ways to solve the challenges that loom before us.
I believe that we will need great ingenuity to enable our planet to provide successfully for more than seven billion human beings, let alone the nine billion that will probably inhabit it by 2050, and I believe that information technology will make this ingenuity possible. Because of fluid marketplaces and an ever more globalized economy, nearly every important resource is becoming scarcer and more costly. Evidence of this is seen in the price not only of oil but also of aluminum, concrete, wood, water, rare-earth elements, and even common elements like copper. Everything is getting more expensive because billions of people are trying creatively to repackage and consume these materials. But there is one resource whose price has consistently has gone down: computation.
via technology review
April 27, 2012
