Avatar

I just saw Avatar in 3D, which is fantastic. It was a powerful experience and in the dreamy afterglow, one thing one thinks is how maybe the solution to all of these challenges related to natural resources is to live lifestyles that use them less intensively.

Wishful thinking, perhaps? (Tyler Cowen notes that "the aliens don't seem to trade much or accumulate capital" - certainly a far cry from the modern global economy.) Higher prices might get us there on the demand side, although they’d also increase (rather than dull) the incentives for resource extraction (and inevitably some of the negative environmental and social consequences that go with it).