#190 We’ve Never Run Out of Anything

The Christian Economist | Dave Arnott

Scarcity thinkers tell us we are running out of resources. But Christians believe our "Made in the image of God creativity" will continue to find new ways of preserving resources. One of my favorite questions to ask groups is to complete this sentence, “Life was better before we ran out of: _____” You’re right, there’s no answer. At least, in years of asking the question, I’ve never heard an answer. If you know of a valuable resource that we’ve run out of, please send me an email. But here’s the problem, we are continually being told that we’re running out of things. Just one example for now: In 1976, Jimmy Carter intoned, “We have about 35 years of oil left in the world.” Oh, so we ran out in 2011? The Coming Ice Age In a video from 1976, frightening music plays as Leonard Nimoy speaks in a very worried tone, “There’s little doubt that someday, the ice will return.” More dramatic music plays, and he continues, “If we are unprepared for the next advance, the results could be hunger and death on a scale unprecedented in all of history. During the lifetime of our grandchildren, Arctic cold and perpetual snow could turn most of the habitable parts of our planet into a polar desert. The next ice age is on its way. At weather stations in the far north, temperatures have been dropping for 30 years. Seacoasts that used to be free of ice, are now blocked year-round. According to climatologists, within a lifetime, "we might be living in the next ice age.” Okay, let’s be simple about this. They were wrong in 1976. What makes you think the climate alarmists are right today? Progress “Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory.” That’s the first line of the book Progress by Johan Norberg. The quote was attributed to Franklin Pierce Adams. Mr. Norberg goes on to write, “The truth is that the good old days were awful. The great story of our era is that we are witnessing the greatest improvement in global living standards ever to take place. Poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy, child labor, and infant mortality are falling faster than at any other time in human history.” In my lifetime, the percentage of the world living in extreme poverty has dropped from 44% to just over 8%. On its current trajectory, it will approach zero in the next ten years. When Karl Marx died in 1883, the average Englishman was three times richer than he was when Marx was born, in 1818. Abundance vs Scarcity, Will We Run Out? The magicians and entertainers Penn and Teller were playing a kind of poker game called Greatest Person in History, with pictures of great people on playing cards. Penn draws a card and pushes all his chips in on the bet because he KNEW that card would cause him to win the game. The face on the card….are you ready for this….Greatest person in history? Let me tell one more story to keep you in suspense. Goldman Sachs came up with the idea of the BRIC countries in 2001. The countries with the greatest supply of land, labor, and capital are Brazil, Russia, India, and China. So, I started on a plan to take MBA students from Dallas Baptist University to all four. Just before we left for India the Dallas Global Alliance was hosting a speech by the Indian ambassador to the US. The Indian representative strode to the podium. He didn’t even say hello, or good morning, or it’s good to be in Dallas. The first words he spoke were, “Please join me in a moment of silence in memory of…..are you ready…this is the guy’s picture on Penn’s poker card….. His name is …..Norman Borlaug. Borlaug grew up in Cresco, Iowa, and earned a Ph.D. in Agronomy from the University of Minnesota. First, he went to Mexico and showed them a dwarf wheat that matured in half the time, so they could double their crop in one year. Then he went to India and Pakistan and did the same thing. He’s known as the man who saved a billion lives. That’s abundance. Now for scarcity. That’s easy,