There’s No Tomorrow Essay 19 million years ago, when dinosaurs still ruled the planet, the earth was in a time of extreme global warming. The continents were drifting apart, creating huge gaps in the earth’s crust which eventually flooded. Algae thrived in the extreme heat which poisoned the water; whenever they died their remains were buried and over time, pressure and heat grew, transforming the remains into hydrocarbon fossil fuels, oil and gas. On land, a similar process occurred producing coal. These limited resources fuel our over-privileged, and under-appreciative lives, and the amount of them is declining rapidly due the population growth and the increasing use of energy and consumption of natural resources, and it is our job as a consumer of natural resources to understand the nature of limited resources and reduce the amount of fossils fuels we require and deplete each year. Limited, or finite, resources are resources that take millions of years to create. They are non-renewable, and take many lifetimes to be replenished. Unfortunately, these are the same resources of which we rely so heavily on, such as, oil, gas, and coal. They are used to heat our water and homes, fuel our electricity and cars, used in hospitals and schools and the military and agriculture and water distribution systems; they are used and depended on in almost every aspect of our daily lives. Human consumption is significantly depleting these resources because we use the natural resources faster than we discover more, and because there is only so much to be discovered. Regional black outs show us that there truly isn’t enough energy to sustain all of us and our high dependency on energy The constraints on our natural resources and environment will eventually become so tight that we have to monitor who uses what and how much they can use or else our population will die of until it reaches a size that the earth can sustain. Limited resources are ingrained throughout our lives and we do not even think about it twice; by taking two one hour showers a day, and keeping our thermostat at 68 constantly, we our depleting our nonrenewable resources faster than they could ever be replenished. The population of the world is increasing exponentially due to the industrial revolution and family’s easy access to food, and money while the amount of natural resources and food is only increasing at a linear rate. As our population increases, the amount of natural resources and energy we require to survive increases and the amount of natural resource discoveries decreases. The quicker our population continues to grow, the more strain put on natural resources, and the faster natural resources will deplete. The world population has grown to 7 billion and is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. The earth is only so big, and can only support so many people because growth is limited by the amount of essential resources we have access to. Overpopulation leads to an increase in the use of paper, food, oil, gas, coal, water, vehicles, communication, and international affairs. The food production industry relies heavily on fossil fuels in order to produce more food than the earth naturally would. This increase in the amount of food, led to a dramatic increase in population, however, the earth only has the resources to produce enough food to sustain this many people for so long and considering the exponentially growing population, we are running out of time. Once we exceed our carrying capacity, there will not be enough resources left to sustain life, and we will begin to die off due to famine, disease, and hunger. There are too many people that depend on too many natural resources to survive, and consume too much.
