151

 appreciate that when we are talking of metals, we are

 not only talking about monetary values, but physical

 quantities. The relationship between production and

 extraction is clouded by the use of abstract numbers

 and aggregates.

 One speaks of the rate of growth of GNP. I haven't
 the faintest idea what this means when I try to
 translate it into coal, and oil, and iron, and the
 other physical quantities which are required to run
 an industry. So far as I have been able to find
 out, the quantity GNP is a monetary bookkeeping
 entity. It obeys the laws of money. It can be
 expanded or diminished, created or destroyed, but
 it does not obey the laws of physics.(3)

 We must relearn that production is a physical

 activity; it is not distinct in its own right as would

 be artistic or religious or scientific development.

 When a telephone call is placed, speech passes over

 wire made of copper mined in Arizona, refined, made

 into bars, then converted into cable in Cicero, Illinois,

 and transported to its destination over rails made of

 Mesabi iron. It is the physical nature of production

 that leaves growth susceptible to limitation.



 The implications of natural resources for

developing countries will have become apparent from

what we have said. Taken from this view alone it is


 3M. K. Hubbard (geologist), Discussion in
Future Environments of North America. Ed. by F. Fraser
Darling and John P. Milton (Garden City, New York:
Natural History Press, 1966), p. 291.