Are we being fair to future generations in using up the world's mineral resources today? what should we do?
145698
Conservation: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. \n\nStart yourself. Use your recycling bin, turn off the light after you leave a room, if you can walk or bike there don't use the car, donate to and/or shop at thrift stores...\n\nlook at the second link for more tips
329170
If things still like now, in the near future, we will not have oil, so the primary source of energy will be the sun, or water or helium, now if all burned hydrocarbons are not enough to kill all living things on the planet, there will be some culture learned, and humans have learn that the old way (think as owners and masters of our world) is not taking us anywhere, we may find a way to keep us balanced in our own world, so if we still using the earth as out own living home, we should be traveling in sail boats, walking and horse carriages, also the need to travel will be reduced by the virtual reality booths at your local 7-eleven that are going to be free stuff by that time.\n\nWeird ??? may be, but at this point can happen.
127620
It has already been done..\n I can remember when mining disasters were an everyday occurrence. More people are killed by disgruntle fellow workers than any single industrial job produces.
193951
Oil officials 10, 20, 30, and 40 years ago said AT THAT TIME that we were going to use up what was known to be total global "proven oil reserves." We keep finding more total oil reserves every few years than was thought to exist worldwide a few years previous - kind of funny logic, isn't it? If we keep finding more oil that exceeded known reserves just a few years back, then what are we so concerned about? Interestingly enough, at the same time we keep finding more proven oil reserves, people keep screaming more and more that we are running out of oil - who is right? History says we can keep finding oil, so maybe there is a regenerative process unknown to the scientific community - they can't possibly know everything about everything. \n\nOnly one thing is certain in SCIENCE: it IS ALWAYS CHANGING. Geologists have been getting better year after year at locating oil reserves, and yet so little is known about oil reserves other than location. What is understood to be fact now will be ridiculed in the future by new theories - which have already happened. They thought we couldn't use most crude oil in the early 20th century because nobody knew about cracking or synthesis of crude products, so they just dumped unusable crude products that were not immediately usable as gasoline or diesel. We have come very far since that time in chemistry alone. \n\nIsn't it interesting that what is vaguely understood by a few scientists is continuously spouted as "truth" by those who know far less. SCIENTIFIC FACT IS CHANGEABLE, meaning it can be tested, and if a different result occurs, then the theory changes, resetting what is known as "fact." Oil may be replenishable, and may not necessarily only come from prehistoric plants and animals as current thought suggests. You raise an interesting argument about oil resources, and only the future will let us know for sure - but there will be a definitive answer. Now, who is ready for the truth?
28921
Coal, Oil, Uranium etc are earths natural resources, and definitly renewable by nature. But are they renewable at the rate we are using them, thats a question to ponder upon! :-)
134923
It's a non-renewable natural resource and it takes forever to be made (as in millions of years). So what we have now is pretty much all we have. If it were cheap then we would have probably run out of it already and then we'd all be screwed.
89588
It is human nature to want to expand our resources.
66260
Do you mean finite natural resources? If so, those are resourses found on earth, (oil)that are of limited supply. In other words we only have so much, and when it it gone, it is gone forever.
941018
The only renewable mineral deposit that I saw I was in Andes (it was called 'salar '). The miners work this mine periodically (harvest), therefore it had thermal sources. This sources , deposit (all the time)  thermal waters, with same kind of minerals solved in it.\n\nRenewable mineral resources on to other planets? I don't know!
995504
The mining of any material from the earth will effect the balance of the earth because it cause changes in the mass moment of inertia of the earth.\n\nSimply stated mass moment of inertia property of any volume containing mass depends on the location and density of all the material in that volume.\n\nWhen we mine materials from the earth move volumes and masses around the surface.\n\nFortunately the total volume of material that has been moved as the result of mining is very small relative to the size of the earth. The affect of these operations is very small as to be unmeasurable.\n\nOn the other hand the creation of dams and reservoirs is believe to have a measurable effect (http://www.threegorgesprobe.org/TgP/index.cfm?DSP=content&ContentID=13755)\n\nNiel
429242
Everyone has a different idea of what a beautiful world would be like.  I can already tell you that if you are striving for world peace, your idea will never work.  If you think world-wide peace is a possibility, then you have a seriously skewed view of reality.\n\nCooperation can and will occur when natural resources are abundant.  When resources are scarce, competition increases and you will see more conflict.\n\nBut, I am an optimist and am curious.  What are some of your ideas?
82347
Yes, and other countries should follow their example.  There are already too many people on this planet and we need to take action on population growth.
358134
Although there's a lot of oil left in the world, and we agree that there's roughly 900 to 1,000 gigabarrels of oil left in the world, you need to put that in context. Up until the Carter years, every decade, we used as much oil as had been used in all of previous history. Now, with exponential growth, if you're at about a 7 percent growth rate, and we were using oil at about 7 percent more per year, the world was, that explains how we got on that curve. Now, the fact that we have about half of all the oil that was ever in the world still there, doesn't mean that the next 50 years, 100 years are going to be like the last 50 years, 100 years, because the world is now demanding a whole lot more oil. Last year, China increased their use probably 25 percent. In less than three years, that doubles their use of oil. They probably won't continue on that growth path, but India's increasing. China's now the No. 2 importer in the world. What are the consequences of this? Boy, economic and geopolitical. When the world recognizes that there's only so much oil that can be produced, and we need more oil -- by the way, if our economy doesn't grow at least 2 percent a year, we can't service our debt. And if we don't think the economy's growing at 2 percent a year, the stock market starts tanking. You know, we have to get used to the fact that there is not going to be oil in the quantities there have been in the past available in the future, and we should have started a long time ago, 'cause we knew -- the world knew -- by at least 1980, that M. King Hubbert was right about our country. If he's right about the United States, why shouldn't he be right about the world? And we should have been doing some things that we've now blown 25 years, that we could have been doing some very meaningful things to prepare for this time when the world reaches its peak ability to produce oil. We didn't do those things then. We really need to start doing them now.
978429
To be honest, I don't think it's fair at all.  The world should be for everyone, isn't it?  But people in power don't seem to think so.
352374
We can recycle so that today's garbage could be tomorrow's stuff.\nDon't throw out - recycle!
564475
for a long time if we hurry and grow up and learn responsible, sustainable living practices.  no more two kids per family, no more mcdonalds, no more flushing my toilet that uses 0.8 gallons of perfectly fine potable water per flush.  neither buying goods imported from anywhere, we would have to make things for ourselves, or at least keep things local.  no more tritium seeping out of our reactors.  producing our own food, namely agricultual goods, instead of relying on corporate greed.  our 1 person per vehicle goingto work everyday thing would have to stop, and a revolutionary mass transportation system developed.  FUSION would have to be viable, because we cannot keep on the path of mining our earth for things we just use up like coal, oil, titanium, gold, diamonds.  i'm not saying we would have to go back to our hunter/gatherer roots, but our disposable lifestyles need to be halted.  we could be a civilized planet that makes due with moderation with the basics.  but if we continue the way we are right now, the very, very wealthy people/families (saudi royal family for example) will engineer a mass kill off (big war) so that they can stay in power on a suitable living sphere.  the human race is compareable to a 72 hour bacterial culture in a petri dish.......we will use up our resources within 72 hours, and at the same time be producing toxins that will kill/mutate us (our own poop, our man made chemicals, etc.)  fusion, and a little help from aliens, and we could change everything.  hope is what i've got; that we will figure it out sooner rather than later.  keep learning, knowledge is pure power.
285073
Jacarta Monkey has the right answer. He gets the points for saying it first.\n\nFor as long as the Earth exists it will contain fresh water and hydrocarbon fuel (notice I re-defined these a bit to be more specific), since both are continuously being replenished by biomass and the hydrologic cycle. People will stop drilling and mining hydrocarbons as soon as it becomes uneconomical, which is way before the Earth runs out. The deadline on all of the Earth's resources is about 3-5 billion years from now when the sun expands and destroys the entire Earth. Until then, only poor people will run out of fuel and water, because only humans are greedy enough to purposefully deny basic resources to other living creatures because they can "own" them.