54 The Inexhaustible Resource of Technology 



in such a way as to preserve the social and aesthetic values of the 

 natural environment for succeeding generations. Leopold has recently 

 implied that this may ultimately become the objective of the move- 

 ment, since increasingly the adequacy of supply of such resources as 

 water and minerals has become a matter of economics. ^^ 



In retrospect this represents a major change in the meaning of con- 

 servation — a change from the negative objective of restriction of use 

 (Carnegie " phrased it as "economy, that the next generation and the 

 next may be saved from want") to the positive one of better utiliza- 

 tion of our resources and our environment in order to make possible 

 better and fuller lives for all the people. 



I believe that this change could only have come about as a result 

 of a popular acceptance of the concept that the resource base for the 

 national economy was not in immediate danger of exhaustion. This 

 reassurance came about in part through the development of addi- 

 tional suppUes, in part through supplementing existing resources by 

 substitute materials, and in part by better utilization practices. It has 

 been easy for most of us to accept, for even the most casual observer 

 is aware of the increased standard of living with the attendant in- 

 crease in the amount and variety of resources on which it is based 

 on the one hand, and the troublesome recurrent surpluses of supply 

 of so many commodities, on the other. 



To me it is also clear that this expansion of the resource base is the 

 product of science and technology. It is an interesting speculation that 

 the concern over exhaustion of natural resources, apparent at the 

 Governors' Conference, stimulated research by physical and biological 

 scientists and engineers in this field. Whatever the cause, research has 

 been active and has been productive of results. 



A brief review of the changes in our resource situation brought 

 about by research in each of the major fields will, I hope, document 

 this belief. 



The field of nonrenewable resources — the mineral raw materials 

 and fuels — is one with which I am most familiar and which I will, 

 therefore, discuss first and in somewhat more detail than the others. 



^^ Luna B. Leopold, Water and the Conservation Movement (U.S. Geological 

 Survey Circular 402), Washington, 1958. 

 ^* Andrew Carnegie, op. cit., p. 24. 



