It's a Material World: Trends in Material Extraction in China, India, Indonesia, and Japan

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August 2, 2011 - Richard York, Christina Ergas, Eugene A. Rosa, and Thomas Dietz<tdietz@msu.edu><tdietz@msu.edu>

Journal or Book Title: Nature and Culture

Keywords: material extraction; modernization; Jevons paradox; world-systems; Asian development

Volume/Issue: Summer 2011

Page Number(s): 103-122

Year Published: 2011

We examine trends since 1980 in material extraction in China, India, Indonesia, and Japan—which together contain over 40% of the world’s population—to assess the environmental consequences of modernization. Economic and population growth has driven rapid expansion of material extraction in China, India, and Indonesia since 1980. China and India exhibit patterns consistent with the Jevons paradox, where the economic intensity of extraction (extraction/GDP) has steadily declined while total extraction grew. In Indonesia, extraction intensity grew along with total extraction. In Japan, total extraction remained roughly constant, increasing somewhat in the 1980s and then slowly declining after 1990, while extraction intensity declined throughout the entire period. These different patterns can be understood to some degree by drawing on political-economic and world-systems perspectives. Japan is an affluent, core nation that can afford to import materials from other nations, thereby avoiding escalation of material extraction within its borders. China and India are rapidly industrializing nations that, although increasingly drawing on resources from beyond their borders, still rely on their own natural resources for growth. Indonesia, an extraction economy with less global power than the other nations examined here, exports its own natural resources, often unprocessed, to spur economic growth. The trends highlighted here suggest that in order to avert environmental crisis, alternative forms of development, which do not involve traditional economic growth, may need to be adopted by nations around the world.

DOI: 10.3167/nc.2011.060201

Type of Publication: Journal Article

Publisher: Berghahn Journals

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Tag List
  • asian development,
  • center for systems integration and sustainability,
  • jevons paradox,
  • material extraction,
  • modernization,
  • world-systems
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