Julian Simon cornered the market in environmental super-optimism back in the
1980s with The Ultimate Resource, a great little book about how, with human
ingenuity at the helm, things could only go on getting better. Now comes The
Ultimate Resource 2 (Princeton University Press, ISBN 0 691 04269 1), an
expansion rather than a sequel, with most of the didactic chapter headings
intact, such as “When will we run out of oil? Never!”
More from New Scientist
Explore the latest news, articles and features
Popular articles
Trending New Scientist articles
1
The world's fastest spider tops 3.5 metres per second
2
Where, when and how to watch the 2026 solar eclipse
3
A type of fibre that stimulates GLP-1 release approved for use in food
4
Babies are born with the neural foundations for maths
5
The weirdness of neutrinos could completely rewrite particle physics
6
The best new science-fiction novels published in July 2026
7
Have scientists really made a living cell from scratch? Not quite
8
We’re not the most successful human species
9
We’ve uncovered a master gene that switches on human development
10
I’m the first person whose life was saved by CRISPR base editing



