Tuesday April 9: If you don't hold it, you don't own it! part two

NOTE: THIS  ASSIGNMENT IS DUE NOT LATER THAN 8PM WEDNESDAY 
04/10/2013

Greetings once again!

Every nation on Earth is composed is people. Every nation is run by governments, which are themselves collections of people. these governments have power, and the people in charge of them very much like the idea of keeping their power.

Resources of every kind feed this power. At it's most obvious, you need resources so that a government can enforce its will: that means people with weapons who keep their rulers in power -- armed forces and police. So at the very least, you need things like steel for vehicles and weapons, 

You also need resources to keep your people alive. Whether your government treats its people well, or like slaves, the people have to be kept alive and (relatively) functional. Its hard to be a slavemaster if all your slaves are in a hunger-induced coma; and if your government rules by the consent of the governed, well then its even more important to keep the people happy. So you need things like drinking water, shelter, food, clothing. These items in turn are dependent on resources. Water is a resource; the chlorine which keeps it fit to drink is a resource too. To make food, you need dirt, seeds, water, air, sunlight and of course, some sort of tools.... in most countries, these tools are mechanized, meaning they're run by machines. These machines need fuel, and of course the machines themselves are made out of things that are also resources - steel, rubber, glass etc.  You also need fertilizer. What's modern fertilizer made from?

To make shelters, usually you need building materials: wood, metal, concrete, glass

To make clothing, you need fibers of some kind, either natural -- cotton, wool, silk -- or manufactured -- rayon, polyester, etc etc, all of which are derived from the resource called petroleum -- "crude oil"

You probably also need electricity -- even the most primitive nations now have it, even if only for their governments and their police and military. How do you produce electric power? What resources can you use to do this?

OK, so now let's pretend that each of you is a leader of one of the governments I am going to be listing here. You may work in groups of two or three, but you MUST be able to work together -- I'm not throwing any civil wars into the mix! Your first order of business is to list all the resources which your country has, then list all the resources it DOESN'T have. That might be difficult to find out on your own,but luckily for you, I have found this website:


http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/geo_nat_res-geography-natural-resources

which will make your research easier. It lists pretty much every nation on earth, along with the resources it has got. By definition, this should mean that the ones that aren't listed for a particular nation means it either doesn't have them or it doesn't have enough of them.

Your job for each group will be to compile the list of what your nation has and what it doesn't have. For example, India has "arable land", while Japan has no such listing. Ireland has natural gas and silver, but not petroleum and chromium, while Iran has exactly the opposite.

Just to make it interesting, I am limiting your choice of nations to the following:

Australia
Brazil
China
England
Germany
India
Mexico
Nigeria
Russia
South Africa
USA

Your choice of nation is on a "first come, first served" basis, so get going and tell me who you will be, and who you're working with. Then get cracking on this assignment

cheers,
Mr. L