Coming Up Empty: Tackling Resource Scarcity

With global demand for basic natural resources inexorably rising, analysts have begun to confront the possibility of a future characterized by scarcity. Some scarcity issues, like food shortages, are familiar, but likely to grow worse. Others, like the depletion of ocean fish stocks, have only recently become apparent. Solutions, whether political or technological, do exist, but they will not come easily. And at times, as with China's efforts to address its growing water scarcity crisis, they might even exacerbate the problem.