ABSTRACT
This chapter examines three very broad issues: natural resource extraction, processing, and consumption; population growth and movements; and environmental degradation and environmental sustainability. It explains how concerns about getting access to natural resources differ from concerns about the need for access to natural resources and concerns about how they are used. The chapter describes why the extraction and consumption of these natural resources takes on an international dimension. It also describes the growth curve in the world's population before and after the early 19th century, and identify where most of the growth has taken place since the 1960s. The chapter discusses how an effective agreement on chlorofluorocarbons was achieved, yet an effective Convention on Climate Change has been difficult to reach. Since the Industrial Revolution a growing security of supply concern has emerged regarding the imbalance between consumption rates and replacement rates of natural resources.
