Jun 26, · With non-renewable energy being well-established, the utilities behind these legacy systems hold immense market power, and this presents a powerful barrier for renewable energy. Solar, wind, and other renewable sources of energy have to vie with deeper pockets, established infrastructure, and decades of experience and policy Depletion of Non-Renewable Resources: All stocks of metal ores, petroleum, natural gas, coal, and other non-renewable resources are finite, being limited to what is present on blogger.com resources are being rapidly consumed, and their exploitable reserves will eventually become depleted Nov 22, · Essay my first experience swimming pool essay done ralph tyler model essay. Essay about earth as a unique planet essay house on fire. What is beauty of nature essay, essay on non renewable resources, climate change and human health essay. I would like to travel essay essay uzbekistan today, essay about english grammar, what schools require sat
Chapter 12 ~ Resources and Sustainable Development – Environmental Science
For about five decades now, we have been able to examine photographs of Earth as viewed from space. Images from that perspective show that Earth is a spherical mass, with a blue oceanic surface, brownish-green landmasses, and a clear atmosphere except where visibility is obscured by whitish clouds.
Such images also reveal that beyond Earth and its atmosphere is the immense, black void of space — an extremely dilute, universal matrix. If we divert our attention from this compelling image of spaceship Earth and focus instead on the unimaginably larger abyss of space, essay on renewable resources, we cannot fail to be stirred by the utter isolation of our lonely planet, the only place in the cosmos that is known to sustain life and ecosystems.
With such a lucid image of Earth in mind, it is not difficult to understand that the resources necessary to sustain life are limited to those already contained on the planet.
That is, with one critical exception — the electromagnetic radiation that is continuously emitted by the Sun. A tiny fraction of that solar energy irradiates Earth, warms the planet, and drives photosynthesis. It is an undeniable reality that all organisms must have continuous access to resources obtained from their environment, essay on renewable resources. Plants and algae, essay on renewable resources, for example, require sunlight and inorganic nutrients, while animals and heterotrophic microbes must feed on the living or dead biomass of other organisms.
Because their organisms must be nourished by environmental capital, the concept can also be extended to ecosystems in their totality. The necessary resources must be available in at least the minimal amounts needed to sustain life, and in larger quantities in ecosystems that are increasing in biomass and complexity, as occurs during succession.
The same reality holds for individual humans, our societies, and our economic systems. All people and their enterprises are subsidized by the harvesting of resources from the environment including those taken from ecosystems. These necessities must be available in the minimal amounts needed to sustain human life, essay on renewable resources in much larger quantities in economic systems that are growing over time.
An obvious conclusion is that economic and ecological systems are inextricably linked. Indeed, this is an undeniable fact. The main connections between economic systems and the natural world involve flows of resources from the environment including ecosystems into the human economy, and offsetting flows of disused materials, by-products, and heat these are sometimes referred to as wastes from the economy back to the environment.
Associated with these interchanges of materials and energy are many kinds of damage caused to natural and managed ecosystems. The damages may be caused by disturbances associated with harvesting natural resources, by emissions of pollutants, and by other stressors related to anthropogenic activities, especially those occurring in heavily industrialized economies.
An ultimate goal of environmental studies to understand how the use of natural resources and changes in environmental conditions are related to a sustainable economic system and to the quality of human life. Ultimately, essay on renewable resources, a sustainable economy is one that runs forever, and that operates without a net consumption of natural capital — the rates of resource use are equal to or smaller than the rates at which the resources are regenerated or recycled.
This definition focuses on the resource-related aspects of sustainability. Also important, however, are environmental damages that may be caused by the extraction and management of natural essay on renewable resources. The social context must also be considered, particularly the ways that wealth is shared among the people who are participating in an economy, essay on renewable resources.
In this chapter, we examine the broader issues related to the use of natural resources in economic systems. Initially, we examine the characteristics of non-renewable and renewable resources. Non-renewable resources are finite, do not regenerate, and therefore are diminished by use.
In contrast, essay on renewable resources, renewable resources can regenerate and may be managed to maintain or increase their productivity, and essay on renewable resources describe practices that foster those goals. This is followed by an investigation of the reasons for a catastrophic but essay on renewable resources common phenomenon — essay on renewable resources depletion of potentially renewable resources through excessive use.
Finally, we consider the notion of sustainability, essay on renewable resources topic that is critically important to the long-term health of both economic and ecological systems.
This chapter deals with natural resources in a conceptual manner; Chapters 13 and 14 investigate the actual use of resources in the international and Canadian economies. All natural resources also known as natural capital can be divided into two categories: non-renewable and renewable.
Non-renewable resources are present in a finite quantity and do not regenerate after they are harvested and used. Consequently, as non-renewable resources are essay on renewable resources, their remaining stocks in the environment are depleted.
Although continuing exploration may discover additional stocks of non-renewable resources that can be exploited, this does not change the fact that there is a finite quantity of these resources present on Earth. For example, the discovery of a large amount of metal ore in a remote place may substantially increase the known, exploitable reserves of those non-renewable materials. That discovery does not, essay on renewable resources, however, affect the amounts of the metal present on Earth, essay on renewable resources.
Metals are often used to manufacture parts of buildings and machinery. To some degree, the metals can be recovered after these uses and recycled back into the economy, effectively extending the lifespan of their reserves. However, due to the growth and essay on renewable resources industrialization of the economy, the demand for metals is accelerating. Because recycling cannot keep up with the increasing demands for metals, large additional quantities must be mined from their known reserves in the environment.
For valuable metals, such as gold and platinum, there is a high efficiency of recycling, but it is much less so for iron and other less-costly metals. Fossil fuels are the other major category of non-renewable resources. They are mostly combusted to provide energy for transportation and heating, which converts their organic compounds into carbon dioxide and water, which are released into the environment.
Some of that CO 2 and H 2 O may be absorbed by plants and other photosynthetic organisms and be converted back into organic materials, a process that might be interpreted as being a kind of recycling. However, the rate at which this happens is insignificantly small compared with the release of the CO 2 and H 2 O by the combustion of fossil fuels, so these materials should be viewed as essay on renewable resources as non-renewable as metals are.
A more minor use of fossil fuels is to manufacture various kinds of plastics. These synthetic materials can be recycled after initial uses, which does help to extend the lifespan of the reserves of fossil fuels. Nevertheless, because the dominant use of fossil fuels is as sources of energy, they essentially flow through an industrial economy, with little new recycling.
Image Non-renewable resources can only be mined. This is a view of the Etaki open-pit diamond mine in the Northwest Territories. Three open pits can be seen as a cluster, plus another at the top-left of the image, along with an extensive tailings-disposal area and other infrastructure. Renewable resources are capable of regenerating after harvesting, so potentially their stocks can be utilized forever. Most renewable resources are biological, although some are non-biological.
Biological Renewable Resources Renewable resources that are biological in nature bio-resources include the following:. Renewable resources, such as timber and fish, are capable of regenerating after they are harvested.
Provided they are not over-harvested or managed inappropriately, renewable resources can be harvested in a sustainable fashion, essay on renewable resources. This photo shows a load of timber that was harvested on Vancouver Island.
Source: B. Non-Biological Renewable Resources The following are renewable resources that are non-biological:. Many renewable resources can be managed to increase their rates of recruitment and productivity and to decrease mortality.
In the following section we explain how management practices can be used to increase the productivity of biological resources. Although a renewable resource can regenerate after harvesting, it can also be badly degraded by excessive use or by inappropriate management. These practices can damage the ability to regenerate and may ultimately cause a collapse essay on renewable resources the stock. As such, it becomes essay on renewable resources by excessive use.
For this reason, ecologists commonly use the qualified term: potentially renewable resources. Global Focus Easter Island was first discovered by wandering Polynesians around the 9th century. The only foods these people brought with them were chicken and sweet potato the climate is too temperate for tropical foods known to the Polynesians, such as breadfruit, coconut, essay on renewable resources, taro, and yam.
Initially, the Easter Islanders could hunt abundant fish and essay on renewable resources in the rich coastal waters of their island, and they could catch wild Polynesian rats, a species they had introduced. By the 16th century, the Easter Islanders had developed a flourishing society, with a population as large as 15, Because of food surpluses, they had time to engage in a cultural activity that involved carving huge slabs of stone into human-faced monoliths, which they erected on great bases of stone at special places along the coast.
Human-faced moai, which are large monoliths carved of volcanic stone on Easter Island. However, essay on renewable resources, Easter Island was soon deforested by the aggressive cutting of trees for fuel, to construct buildings and fishing boats, and for use as rollers. Once the forest resource was gone, several key enterprises of the islanders collapsed. Stone monoliths could no longer be moved, sturdy homes could not be built, and fishing and porpoise hunting became impossible.
It also became difficult to cook food and keep warm because the only other fuel available was the sparse biomass of shrubs and herbaceous plants. In other words, the deforestation of their island caused the economy of this Polynesian society to collapse.
The cultural and economic disintegrations were so great that when Europeans first arrived at Easter Island in essay on renewable resources, the inhabitants could not remember why the stone monoliths had been erected. These people were living in squalid conditions in caves and reed huts, were engaged in warfare among rival clans, and were cannibals, possibly to supplement the meagre food available on their treeless island.
An obvious lesson of Easter Island is that even primitive societies are capable of over-exploiting the vital resources needed for subsistence. Undoubtedly, the Easter Islanders were keenly aware of their precarious circumstances — especially the limited resources available to sustain their society on a small and isolated island.
As these vital resources became obviously diminished, the people likely discussed the need to essay on renewable resources their economic base.
However, any such deliberations came to naught, and there was an irreversible collapse of the economy and culture of these people. Any of these natural resources can be rapidly depleted by excessive use. There was no alternate, resource-rich refuge to which the Easter Islanders could escape from their self-inflicted catastrophe. Likewise, as far as we know, there is no alternative to planet Earth. Potentially at least, populations of animals essay on renewable resources plants, and their assemblages known as communities and ecosystems such as a tract of forestcan be harvested in a sustainable manner — that is, without depleting the size of the resource or its capability to renewal.
Essentially, this is due to the fact that, essay on renewable resources, within limits, bio-resources are able to regenerate after some of their biomass is harvested. As long as the rate of harvesting does not exceed that of regeneration, a bio-resource can be used in a sustainable way. Ultimately, the upper limits of the productivity of an individual organism is limited by genetically determined factors that influence its fecundity, longevity, and growth rate.
To reach that potential limit of productivity, an organism must experience optimal environmental conditions, essay on renewable resources. In a collective sense, genetic factors also set a ceiling on the potential productivity of populations or organisms, as well as communities and larger ecosystems. However, in the real world it is typical that environmental conditions are not optimal, and so the actual or realized recruitment, growth, and maturation of essay on renewable resources and biomass are less than their potential amounts.
As a result, it is possible to increase the size of a harvest by the use of management practices that enhance the productivity of bio-resources. When these practices are used in a coordinated way, they are called a management system. In general, the various management practices are designed to alleviate environmental constraints on productivity.
This is done by mitigating factors that may be preventing some recruitment, or are causing mortality, or are constraining the rate of productivity.
Renewable Energy 101 - National Geographic
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