People: Resource or Burden?

People do not merely consume and pollute. They also create; they produce. They find ways to turn negatives into positives. For example, the methane gas produced by landfills is now turned into energy. Ores which were of no economic value, now produce valuable minerals. People find ways to produce more efficiently. Today’s computers are vastly more powerful than those of a decade or two ago, and are also smaller; they use less material; they consume less energy per amount of work; and they further allow us to reduce the use of materials and energy for other purposes, in a virtuous cycle.