We need natural resources for just about everything we do. We need them for food and clothing, for building materials and energy. We even need them to have fun. Table 20.1 gives examples of how we use natural resources. Can you think of other ways we use natural resources? Use Vehicles Resources Rubber for tires from rubber trees Steel frames and other metal parts from minerals such as iron Example iron ore Use Electronics Resources Plastic cases from petroleum prod- ucts Glass screens from minerals such as lead Example lead ore Homes Nails from minerals such as iron Timber from trees spruce timber Jewelry Gemstones such as diamonds Minerals such as silver silver ore Food Sunlight, water, and soil Minerals such as phosphorus corn seeds in soil Clothing Wool from sheep Cotton from cotton plants cotton plants Recreation Water for boating and swimming Forests for hiking and camping pine forest Some natural resources are renewable. Others are not. It depends in part on how we use them. Renewable resources can be renewed as they are used. An example is timber, which comes from trees. New trees can be planted to replace those that are cut down. Sunlight is a renewable resource. It seems we will never run out of that! Just because a resource is renewable, it doesnt mean we should use it carelessly. If we arent careful, we can pollute resources. Then they may no longer be fit for use. Water is one example. If we pollute a water source it may not be usable for drinking, bathing or any other type of use. We can also overuse resources that should be renewable. In this case the resources may not be able to recover. For example, fish are renewable resources. Thats because they can reproduce and make more fish. But water pollution and overfishing can cause them to die out if their population becomes too low. Figure 20.1 shows another example. Some resources cant be renewed. At least, they cant be renewed fast enough to keep up with use. Fossil fuels are examples. It takes millions of years for them to form. We are using them up much more quickly. Elements that are used to produce nuclear power are other examples. They include uranium. This element is already rare. Sooner or later, it will run out. Supplies of non-renewable resources are shrinking. This makes them harder to get. Oil is a good example. Oil reserves beneath land are running out. So oil companies have started to drill for oil far out in the ocean. This costs more money. Its also more dangerous. Figure 20.2 shows an oil rig that exploded in 2010. The explosion killed 11 people. Millions of barrels of oil spilled into the water. It took months to plug the leak. Rich nations use more natural resources than poor nations. In fact, the richest 20 percent of people use 85 percent of the worlds resources. What about the poorest 20 percent of people? They use only 1 percent of the worlds resources. You can see this unequal distribution of oil resources in Figure 20.3. Imagine a world in which everybody had equal access to resources. Some people would have fewer resources than they do now. But many people would have more. In the real world, the difference between rich and poor just keeps growing. Every 20 minutes, the human population adds 3,500 more people. More people need more resources. For example, we now use five times more fossil fuels than we did in 1970. The human population is expected to increase for at least 40 years. What will happen to resource use? How can we protect Earths natural resources? One answer is conservation. This means saving resources. We need to save resources so some will be left for the future. We also need to protect resources from pollution and overuse. When we conserve resources, we also cut down on the trash we produce. Americans throw out 340 million tons of trash each year. We throw out 2.5 million plastic bottles alone every hour! Most of what we throw out ends up in landfills. You can see a landfill in Figure 20.4. In a landfill, all those plastic bottles take hundreds of
Output: any natural resource that will not run out if we use it wisely