gek-opel said:Yeah the three hours thing only works in staggeringly rich environments such as jungle... I have read theories posited as to the eventual "success" of Chinese, European, and Middle Eastern civilisations throughout history being dependant on this, the greater difficulty of achieving basic subsistence leading to a broader variety of solutions and increased innovation... (Davies in "Europe- A History" I believe)
This seems to make sense. Presumably the mechanism is that the struggle of daily life in difficult climates meant people were accustomed to working hard, and developing tools (and a coordinated economic structure) to make things easier, and then the process just continues. As opposed to just getting on with eating nice ripe fruit.
I find it slightly easier to imagine the effects of resource crisis than climate change.
Resource crisis will presumably imply escalating prices of those scarce resources. Undoubtely, that will mean that people will turn to creating their own products and services from readily available resource - and a much greater degree of recycling and looking after one's stuff and fixing things rather than just chucking it out when it's old and you're bored with it. The cost of the 'new' will go up. Also, travel will be much more expensive, which will mean that the benefits of Globalisation to business will be eroded by the increased costs of shipping. Which would imply that the specialisation that Globalisation has released will have to shrink back again.
The price of stuff is the key indicator here - the point at which transportation costs go beyond the benefits of increased specialisation and cheap foreign labour will be the point at which the hegemony of the Global Company will begin to collapse.
Doubtless, we're in for some inflation.