For half the people here it will depend on remembering what they think they understand someone else having understood what Limbaugh said about what Wattsup reported what Goddard said about what Lindzen inferred what Seitz and Singer said about the House that Jack Built and what Exxon-Mobil wanted to hear in 1994.
Pass the passenger pigeon pie, please. I need to finish dinner and go fill up my car tank with some of that 29￠ per gallon gas.
Well, the Earth has run out of lots of plants and animals that once thrived on it and are now extinct, that's one example of a resource that the Earth has run out of.
If you're thinking of things like minerals, it's not likely, except for short-lived radioactive elements. There are finite amounts of certain things, that only come from one particular place. We probably have "run out of" blue cap tourmalines from the Tourmaline Queen mine in Pala, California. But there will be other fine tourmalines found around the world, although one could envision a future when ALL such deposits have been mined out.
You're probably thinking of resources like iron, copper, gold, aluminum, etc. While the Earth will not run out of them, the cost may become prohibitively high so that no one mines them anymore. As an example, there are very few metal mines that ever shut down because they've run out of the metal that was mined. More often all of the very rich ore was mined and the less rich ore would cost more to mine and process than the end product could be sold for. Often times these mines will be closed, but the owners will keep them, speculating that the price of the resource will go up and it will be profitable to mine them again.
Also, you should realize that even when we use resources they are often still present on the Earth. Recycling becomes more important as time goes on because the trash of today will be the "ore" of the future.
Not to my knowledge. Check out this article http://www.gizmag.com/four-crucial-resou...
Hasn't run out yet, but phosphorous is one that is critical and not talked about very much.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_phosph...
Yes it almost has.
looked on several sites and can't find any. Thanks!!
