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An umbrella term for materials manufactured to replace natural resources—synthetic fuels, synthetic food, synthetic fibers, synthetic minerals—often presented as solutions to resource depletion. The synthetic resources paradigm assumes that technology can substitute for nature, that engineered alternatives can scale without ecological consequence, and that the problem is scarcity of materials rather than the system that creates scarcity. Critics argue synthetic resources often require massive energy, create new forms of dependency, and perpetuate the logic of extraction while changing its form.
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