The international community needs to pay more attention to the role of minerals and other critical, lesser-known resources as part of a comprehensive international resource strategy.
During a talk at The Fletcher School, Dr. Raimund Bleischwitz, Transatlantic Academy Fellow and Co-Director, Material Flows and Resource Management, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, posited that "future risks and threats are likely to arise from the nexus of using all natural resources rather than from individual resources alone."
The looming need for additional sources of energy is well known and amply discussed. What is recognized to a lesser degree is that demand will grow for all resources in the coming years, especially for metal ores and non-metallic minerals.
{http://fletcher.tufts.edu/CIERP/News/more/Mar1Bleischwitz|read the full article}