Resource Inequality

Two different things, not one

Resource inequality sounds like one quantity that some places have more of. It is not. It is a gap between two different things: what a place has, meaning what it can produce or extract from its own land and water, and what a place uses, meaning what its people and industries actually consume. The crucial point is that the two vary independently. Knowing one tells you nothing about the other. A place can sit on enormous reserves and consume very little; another can produce almost nothing and consume a great deal. Supply is set largely by physical geography, which is to say climate, geology, relief, soil and rivers, and consumption is set largely by people, which is to say how many there are, how wealthy they are, what industries they run and how they live. Those two lists have almost nothing in common, which is exactly why they do not move together. So the interesting cases are the mismatches, and the questions that follow all come from them. Where a place uses more than it produces, the difference has to arrive from somewhere else, which means trade, and trade means dependence on somebody else's decisions. Where a place produces more than it uses, it has something to sell and a reason to care about who is buying. This module carries no figures and names no countries, and that is deliberate rather than a gap. The specification supplies none for this topic, and arguing a pattern without them is precisely the skill you need in an exam when a number will not come to mind.

Six terms, and the first pair is the whole idea

The first two are the two different things. The fifth is the distinction that decides whether a comparison means anything at all.

How a mismatch turns into dependence

Six stages take a place from a growing gap to a decision that is no longer entirely its own. Put them in order.

• Population and industry grow, and consumption of the resource rises with them
• Supply from the place's own land and water rises more slowly, because physical conditions set a ceiling
• Consumption passes supply, and a deficit opens between the two
• The difference is bought from places with a surplus, which closes the gap for now
• The place becomes exposed to prices, politics and routes it does not control
• Decisions at home are now shaped by what suppliers elsewhere decide, which is what dependence means in practice

Match each combination to what it tells you

Why each half varies

Supply and consumption are driven by different lists, which is the mechanical reason they do not move together. The third column is what happens where they fail to meet.

Plot the widening gap

This is a SCHEMATIC diagram, not data about any real place: the vertical scale simply means more of the resource, and the horizontal steps simply mean later. Supply is already plotted across all five steps, rising slowly. Consumption is plotted at steps 1, 2 and 3, rising much faster. Plot consumption at step 4, continuing the steep rise it has shown so far.

Reading the gap

On the diagram you have just completed, the two lines start close together and then move apart. What is the distance between them at the later steps showing?

• A growing deficit, since the place is using more than it produces and the shortfall is widening
• That supply is falling
• A growing surplus, since both lines are going up
• That the population has stopped growing

Compulsory, and arguable without numbers

Two warnings, and the first one costs whole questions every year. This overview is compulsory for every candidate. Later in the topic you study one resource in depth, food or water or energy, and it is easy to assume this general section is part of that choice. It is not. Everybody is examined on the global pattern of supply and consumption across all three, whichever depth study they did, and candidates skip it believing otherwise. The second concerns how to write about it. You can argue this topic properly without a single figure, and you will often have to, because a number that will not come to mind is worse than no number if you guess at it. Three things carry an argument on their own: direction, meaning which way something is moving; comparison, meaning which is larger relative to the other; and consequence, meaning what follows from the difference. "Consumption has risen faster than supply, so the gap has widened, and the difference has to be bought from elsewhere" contains no data and is a complete piece of geography. What you must not do is invent the figure you wish you remembered. A confidently stated percentage that is wrong is worse than the same sentence without it, because it tells the examiner you will assert things you do not know. If you have a real figure, use it; if you do not, argue the pattern and say so implicitly by writing in comparative terms. Finally, keep total and per person apart, and remember that a national total hides who inside the country actually receives anything. Both slips are easy to make and both are easy to avoid by saying which you mean.

Complete the inequality framework

Resource inequality is a gap between what a place _____ and what it uses, and the two vary _____ of each other, so knowing one tells you nothing about the other. Supply is set mostly by physical conditions and consumption mostly by _____ factors, which is the mechanical reason they do not move together. Where consumption exceeds supply the difference must be bought from elsewhere, and the place becomes exposed to prices and decisions it does not control, which is what _____ means in practice. The hardest combination to interpret is low supply with low consumption, because a small total can mean efficiency or it can mean people going _____.

Spot the three sound inequality statements

Select the THREE statements that could stand as they are in an answer.

• Supply is shaped mainly by physical conditions and consumption mainly by human ones, so the two vary independently and a place can have a great deal of a resource while using very little of it.
• Low supply combined with low consumption is the hardest position to read, since a small total can indicate efficiency or deprivation and the total alone cannot distinguish them.
• A national total says nothing about who inside the country receives the resource, so inequality between places and inequality within them are separate questions.
• A place running a deficit in a resource must be poorer than a place running a surplus.
• Quoting an approximate percentage from memory strengthens an answer even if you are unsure of it.
• Comparing one country's total consumption with another's consumption per person shows which uses more.

A 6-mark answer with no figures in it

Explain why the global pattern of resource supply does not match the global pattern of resource consumption. [6 marks] The two are produced by different causes, which is why they do not line up. Supply depends mostly on physical geography: climate and soil decide what can be grown, rainfall and geology decide how much water is available and whether it can be stored, and geology, terrain, wind and sunlight decide what energy can be extracted or generated. None of that is chosen by the people living there, and none of it can be changed quickly. Consumption depends on almost entirely human factors. More people use more of everything, so a large population consumes a large total; wealthier households eat more varied food, use more water at home and use far more energy, so consumption rises as places develop; and industry consumes resources directly, so what a country manufactures changes what it uses. Because these are human, they can change within a generation, while the physical conditions setting supply do not. The result is that the two patterns are drawn on different maps. Some places hold far more of a resource than they use, which makes them exporters with a strong interest in who is buying. Others use far more than they hold, which means the difference must be bought, converting a physical shortage into a question of price, politics and transport routes, and leaving decisions at home partly in the hands of suppliers elsewhere. A third group has little of the resource and uses little of it, and that position is the hardest to interpret, because low consumption can reflect efficiency or it can reflect people going without. What earned the marks: two different sets of causes identified rather than one; the independence of the two halves stated explicitly; consequences drawn from the mismatch rather than the mismatch simply named; and a comparison argued throughout in terms of direction, relative size and what follows. There is not a single number in the answer, and it does not need one. If you have a genuine figure, add it; if you do not, this is what a full-mark answer looks like without.

Find the two sentences claiming more than they can

Five sentences from answers about resource inequality. Two of them assert something the writer could not actually know or support. Tap those TWO.

• Around seventy per cent of the world's energy is consumed by the richest fifth of countries.
• Consumption has risen faster than supply in many places, so the gap between them has widened.
• The largest consumer of water in total is also the largest consumer per person.
• Supply depends largely on physical conditions and consumption largely on human ones, which is why they vary independently.
• Where a deficit opens, the shortfall must be bought from elsewhere, which creates dependence on decisions taken abroad.

Build the argument without a figure

Assemble a sentence that argues the pattern using direction, comparison and consequence alone.

Four readings of a resource pattern

Each asks you to interpret a situation. Watch for the reading that assumes more than the evidence allows.

• A place records low consumption of a resource per person.
• A wealthy place consumes far more of a resource than it produces.
• A country's national supply of a resource is described as adequate for its population.
• In the exam you want to support a point about global consumption and the figure will not come to mind.

Explain the pattern

Explain the global pattern of supply and consumption of food, water and energy, and why the two do not match. [9 marks]

• Open by separating the two things being compared, what a place produces and what it consumes
• Give the causes of each separately, physical for supply and human for consumption, and say why that makes them independent
• Work through more than one of the four possible combinations rather than only the deficit case
• Explain what a mismatch produces, including what dependence actually costs a place
• Argue in terms of direction, comparison and consequence, and do not invent a figure you cannot support