Natural Resource
Natural resources are elements found in nature that are essential or advantageous for human life, and they can be broadly categorized into necessary and useful resources. Necessary resources include freshwater, plants, and sunlight, all of which are crucial for survival and can generally replenish themselves, although they may be affected by overuse and pollution. Useful resources encompass minerals, trees, and fossil fuels, which contribute to making life more comfortable and sustaining various industries.
Natural resources can be renewable, such as wind, water, and solar energy, which can be replenished naturally and utilized in sustainable ways. Conversely, nonrenewable resources, like fossil fuels and minerals, are finite and can become depleted over time, raising concerns about their long-term availability. The historical usage of these resources dates back to early human civilization, where people relied on their surroundings for sustenance and tools. However, as populations grew and industrialization progressed, the impact on natural resources intensified, leading to challenges such as pollution and resource depletion. Understanding the balance and management of these resources is vital for ensuring their availability for future generations.
Natural Resource
A natural resource is something that is not made by humans but is necessary or useful in their lives. Natural resources are often used as raw materials to make new substances or products. Necessary resources include freshwater, plants, and sunshine, while minerals, trees, and petroleum are considered useful resources. Renewable resources are those that can be replaced as they are used, while nonrenewable resources become depleted and are not replaced by nature.
Overview
When human beings appeared on Earth, they had no choice but to live off its resources. The first inhabitants gathered their food from the environment and drank water from the creeks and lakes. These resources, both necessary and renewable, were generally dependable and unlikely to run out. However, people also learned to use nonrenewable resources, such as stones, metal ores, and fossil fuels, including coal and oil. As civilization expanded, people invented more useful creations from the resources they found. In time, as people moved to cities and industries grew, the use of resources began to pollute the Earth, and nonrenewable resources began to show signs of depletion.
Necessary Resources
Necessary resources are those that support human life. Foods such as fruit, nuts, grasses, and other plant products have fed the human population since it first appeared. Animals that provide meat and resources such as hides, bone, and horns have been used for human survival since its earliest history. All these items are renewable—that is, they grow back or reproduce themselves so that, at least theoretically, they keep up with the demand for their use.
Water is clearly necessary for all living things and is generally considered renewable. However, the water supply can be depleted through overuse or polluted by industrial and human waste. Weather cycles also affect supplies, and some areas may experience drought while others are plagued by floods.
Additional necessary resources, including sunlight and air, are also considered renewable. The sun provides light, heat, and raw energy that can be converted into electricity. Air contains oxygen for humans to breathe and, when moving with sufficient force, the energy of wind power.
Useful Resources
Useful resources, such as trees, ore, and fossil fuels, provide materials that humans use for making their lives easier or more comfortable. Wood from trees was sharpened or carved for use as tools, fashioned into boats or rafts, or simply burned for heat and cooking purposes. Metal ores taken from the ground provided raw material for stronger tools, weapons, and a variety of modern inventions. Energy to drive industry, transportation, and commerce has been found in fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas, and oil, which are also useful resources.
Renewable Resources
Renewable resources, those that replenish themselves, provide a continuing source of raw materials or energy. Stone-age humans learned to use wood, stones, and animal bones to make tools, since metal had not been discovered yet. Some early civilizations made shelters from sticks and hides. Others left evidence of structures made of clay bricks, while still others built with sod, slabs of grass-covered earth.
Renewable energy sources include sunshine, wind, and water. Solar energy can be collected in photovoltaic cells, also called solar panels, and stored in special batteries. Enough free solar energy reaches Earth every hour to provide people with all the electricity they need in the world for a year. However, collecting solar energy is a large investment because the equipment is expensive. Power plants use heat from the sun to boil water, which turns a steam turbine to produce electricity.
Wind energy is related to solar power, since wind is caused by the uneven heating of Earth's surface by the sun. It is harvested by turbines that generate power, but in this case the wind itself turns the turbines. Tall windmills placed on mountaintops or open plains form wind farms that collect the energy.
Water power was an early source of energy, often used to run mills that ground grain. Water wheels had paddles that turned the wheel when moving water hit them, and a shaft transferred the power to turn grinding stones. Water also generated hydroelectricity, which is electrical power generated through man-made dams.
Some renewable resources, such as timber and animals, can be overharvested to the extent that they cannot replace themselves. Clear-cutting trees without replanting can result in erosion of the land, even to the point that it becomes a desert. Some animals, such as dodo birds, were hunted to extinction, and the buffalo of the American plains barely escaped that fate.
Nonrenewable Resources
When someone discovered that black rocks called coal would burn, the use of nonrenewable fossil fuels began. Fossil fuels, formed from plants that decayed millions of years ago, contain the energy the plants absorbed from the sun. Since the discovery of petroleum and natural gas, humankind has gradually learned to use these resources to power machinery, heat homes and businesses, and provide electricity for lighting, cooking, manufacturing, and a variety of other practical uses. Processed into gasoline, heating oil, and other fuels, petroleum is also the raw material for plastic products. Natural gas is processed to remove impurities, but it can be used in its basic form. Coal, which was plentiful and relatively easy to mine, was burned to power the steam turbines that supported the Industrial Revolution in nineteenth-century England. Its wide use resulted in dangerous air pollution. In the late twentieth century, people realized that sources of nonrenewable natural resources were running out. Conservation efforts began, and suppliers searched for new sources and new methods of extraction.
Uranium is also a nonrenewable resource. It is a radioactive metal ore used in an enriched form as fuel for steam turbines in commercial nuclear power plants. It also has military uses, such as powering nuclear ships and submarines and devising highly destructive nuclear weapons. Because radioactivity is dangerous to living things, disposal of nuclear waste is a serious problem. The Environmental Protection Agency monitors uranium use and disposal.
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