A Critique of the Short-Term Perspectives Implicit in Most Resource Models

The basic points of my remarks this afternoon can be summarized in a few sentences. Most of the relationships that will shape the production and use of minerals globally over the next 40 years are missing from the models that we have been discussing over the past day and a half. Moreover, modeling paradigms underlying the models that we have examined cannot even meaningfully accommodate those relationships. Thus further marginal adjustments to those models will not lead ultimately to models with an acceptable ability to deal with longer-term resource issues. Four new initiatives must be pursued to give us useful long-term models.