Born in Brooklyn, New York, Joanne Greenberg graduated from American University, Washington, D.C., with a major in anthropology and English literature, and she has studied at the University of London and the University of Colorado. After her marriage, she and her husband Albert moved to Golden – when Dr. Garvin had his office on Washington, and Dr. Jennings had his offices over the bank.

Her husband encouraged her to write her first book, THE KING'S PERSONS, an account of the York Massacre, which was researched with the great help of Madeline Gibbon, librarian at the Colorado School of Mines. Isn't it wonderful how what goes around comes around? Mrs. Greenberg now teaches there. This book has been followed by other novels and collections of short stories.

When Mr. Greenberg worked as a vocational rehabilitation counselor with a caseload of deaf clients, Mrs. Greenberg became interested in communicating with the deaf, and since then has assisted in the setting up of mental health programs for the deaf in various hospitals throughout the country. This interest also led to her novel IN THIS SIGN, which has been dramatized on television.

Mrs. Greenberg and her husband live in a mountaintop home near Lookout Mountain. Their two sons are grown. She writes daily; tutors in Latin and Hebrew; teaches cultural anthropology and fiction writing at the School of Mines; and is active in the Beth Evergreen congregation, conducting bar mitzvah preparation as well as other involvements. She is a past member of the Lookout Mountain Fire Department and the Idledale Rescue Team. She is a frequent participant in writers' seminars and workshops all over the country, and has conducted classes in writing for military personnel in Japan.

Her speaking engagements include, but are not limited to, schools, library associations, and book groups. In addition, she performs as a storyteller, helping to keep this art, and the stories, alive.

Mrs. Greenberg has authored novels, short stories, and innumerable articles on a variety of subjects, and when something in life annoys her, she is liable to write a song about it. Her students laugh because she does not use a computer to do her writing, but they haven't written sixteen books. Her ambition is to stay around, write some more books, and finish the mending.

Over the past several decades a lively debate among scholars regarding the long-run availability of mineral resources has generated many new and interesting insights. Still, the debate continues. Some remain convinced it is just a matter of time before our nonrenewable resources are gone. Others believe they are, for all practical purposes, inexhaustible.

Drawing on the recent literature, this lecture explores the evolution of public concerns in this area, the measures used to assess resource availability, the historical trends they identify, and the implications for the future. It also addresses the environmental and other social costs associated with mineral extraction and use, and the difficulties of forcing producers and consumers to pay for those costs. Finally, it considers the implications for the future – for sustainable development, for conservation and recycling, and for population growth.

The objective is not to determine whether or not mineral depletion is a threat to modern civilization in the long run, but rather to provide a way of looking at the issues that allows members of the audience to come to their own conclusions. This, it will be argued, requires making assumptions that reasonable people can question. Which, of course, is why the debate continues.