Book review

With his book "250 Years of Industrial Consumption and Transformation of Nature: Impacts on Global Ecosystems and Life" the geologist
Engelbrecht offers a scientifically precise overview of the diversity of sources of natural commodities, and the consequences resulting from their
extraction, translocation, denaturation, use, and disposal. Expecially for younger colleagues and students of material matters, this work offers a
valuable review of the complex relations between two nonlinear complex systems: the ecosphere and the anthroposphere. Students of political
science, business, legal matters, theology, and the humanities, in general, will find a wealth of details that can enrich their understanding of the
material basis of life.

According to the opinion of a growing number of scientists, the stepwise tenfold reduction of the actual extreme utilization of natural resources
is the basic requirement to approach sustainable wellbeing for humans as well as future viability of industry. From a technical aspect, no significant
loss of wealth would be expected for endconsumers as a consequence. In sharp contrast, technology cannot rebuild the ecosphere's functions and
services that were damaged or destroyed by our present kind of consumptive economy. Other than in the case of of the research invested for
understanding climate change, the necessary preconditions for a rational organization of the unavoidable resource transition are not as yet satisfactory.
This applies also to understand the fundamental relation between the economy and the stability of the ecosphere, as much as it relates to social and
political options for realizing the dematerialization of the human society. The vulnerable spot of economy consists in its extreme intensity in utilizing
resources.

January, 31, 2018
Professor Dr. Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek (*1932 †2019), Chemist, founder of the Wuppertal-Institute for Climate,
Environment and Energy and of the Factor 10 Institute, initiator of the World Resource Forum in Davos.

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