Natural scientists start from the assumption that people and their economies exist physically. Therefore, without resource security – without continued access to the materials needed to feed and power human economies, these economies lose their ability to operate. Opportunities erode (Rockström et al., 2009; Steffen et al., 2015). Financial resources can be employed to compensate for local lack of resources, as these financial resources can access physical resources elsewhere, as long as those ‘elsewheres’ have extra resource capacity. However, global overuse adds pressure to resource competition, as made apparent in the prominent example of climate change which is driven by emissions from fossil fuel use and from land use change.