A note on scarcity

Scarcity is conditioned on many environmental factors. In particular, scarcity is often related to biological activities.

On our neighboring planets, such as Venus and Mars, there is little oxygen molecules in their atmosphere. Oxygen molecules are of high energy level and hence react easily. In an equilibrium state, there will be little oxygen in the atmosphere.

But the earth is abundant with plants. Plants continue to convert solar energy into chemical energy. In this process, large amount of high energy oxygen is created and maintained.

On Mars and Venus, there is little water. H2O molecules can be split into H2 and O2 by solar power. H2, being light, escape the gravity of the plants easily. Over time, there is little water left on the planets.

But the earth is abundant with oxygen in the atmosphere. H2 will react with O2 to form H2O again. This retains most of H2O on the earth.

Carbon is not a particular abundant element on the earth. Its proportion in earth’s crust is about 0.02%. But life is a process of concentrating carbon. As a result, fossil fuels, such as coal, petroleum and natural gas can be highly concentrated. The energy cost of extracting fossil fuels is on average much lower than the energy contained in the fossil fuels. However, the energy cost has been increasing over time.

Oxygen, water and fossil fuels would be very scarce in most environment. It is based on the abundance of these otherwise scarce resources that human civilizations flourish. From the terminology of economics, it is based on the abundance of high use value and low exchange value resources that human civilizations flourish. But with the continuous depletion of fossil fuels, societies have been changing in many ways over time.  

Most of the useful resources, oxygen, water, and fossil fuels, are generated or maintained by solar energy. But stars, such as the sun, are very scarce. The nearest star, other than the sun, is four light year away. In the vast universe, most places are empty space with temperature near absolute zero. On the earth, even go to a high mountain is freezing. Warmth is a very scarce resource in this universe.