Decline of Natural Resources

In the deep well of problems which are a concern for the world, there stands certainly another major issue: the decline of natural resources. 

The inter relationship between demand for natural resources and environmental problems stays at the peak of world issues for there are hardly any solutions to it. Overpopulation is the quintessential factor behind it. In simple words, the demand increases with an increase in population, ultimately causing the decline of natural resources.

Natural resources are necessary to sustain life and preserving them has become extremely important. Humans assume that they are free gifts given by the environment but that’s where our mindset lacks. These are resources of nature which are finite and need to be used with utmost concern.

Natural resources which are on the rapid scale of decline are:

1. Water

We think that water is a resource that doesn't need to be conserved?! Isn’t water unlimited? We can use it as much as we want, right? NO, it is certainly restricted. Freshwater only makes 75pc of the world's water resources out of which we only have access to 30.

Despite living in an era of rapid advancements, we haven't come up with any reasonable solutions to resolve the problem of water scarcity (lack of clean water). It is one of the major problems as millions of people in the present lack access to clean drinking water. In major parts of the world there is a shortage of water.

Even the trend of urbanization couldn’t resolve the problem with modern solutions. Statistically the UN predicts that by 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity.

2. Oil 

Global conventional oil supply is currently at political risk. This is because the sum of conventional oil production from all countries in the world, except the five main Middle-East suppliers, is near maximum by physical resource limits.

Oil resources are on the constant graph of decline due to the over-usage and over-exploitation. Oil money is the sole contender for businesses, in the middle east, where the world's major supply of oil comes.

Heavy investments are made in this field with no resource exploitation limit- just to make heaps of oil supply run for cash. Oil resources are finite and are on the verge of getting exhausted due to their extreme demand. Shortages are inevitable unless radical changes occur in demand, or in the supply of oil.

The political agenda makes it a bigger matter of concern over everything.

3. Coal 

This is the most used fossil fuel and a non-renewable energy source. Peak coal extraction is predicted between 2025 and 2048.

In 2011, due to the soaring demands reaching a point making it one of the most exploited resources. The increasing demand is pretty obvious because of the fact that it is the most locally used natural resource. From heavy industries to local households, coal is the only source of energy readily available.

Moreover, coal mining is a dangerous activity too because of constant hazards of workers due to the risks involved in underground excavation mines.

4. Mineral depletion

The only form of over exploited activity done for the sake of economic growth is mineral extraction.

First of all, mineral extraction is a heavy and bulky process which generates toxic gases causing air pollution. Secondly, the process involves extraction of total minerals accounted for in the mine without any finite amount which ultimately leads to over exploitation as it is certainly unregulated.

The rate of mineral depletion is going high day-by-day as mines are getting exhausted easily and availability is declining rapidly.

The world is definitely facing problems day to day, there are thousands of issues but one thing we need to ensure is not leaving out any of them in the process of overlooking one. 

Countries’ governments have been irresponsible in regulating the usage of natural resources and thus have failed to take any action lately; big cash-rich companies have been constantly over exploiting natural resources just to make mere profit.

Sustainability as a term is meaningless for them because they consider resources as gifts of nature and just use them all over until its done. 

The declining rates of natural resources due to the increasing rates of demands are becoming a real concern, irregulation in mining processes lead to high levels of pollution, discharge of toxic waste into freshwater bodies completely end up ruining aquatic life as well as the whole water body as it contains harmful chemicals.

Lately and seriously, steps have been taken to ensure proper usage of natural resources with transparency but its still not over yet, new steps need to be regulated by government in economic reforms, the ministry of minerals, industries and forests need to set-up a well coordinated structure f0r companies in order to ensure their supply and optimistically not over exploiting the  qualitative resources and maintaining sustainability.  

The world requires attention for this because it's better now than being too late; there need to be solutions to this so that the demand isn’t affected and at the same time sustainability is ensured and we don’t need to compromise with the needs for the future generation. 

Arham Shah