USE NATURAL RESOURCES?

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1 A HOW DO WE USE NATURAL RESOURCES? Think about the food you eat and the clothes you wear. Where do these items come from? How did they transform from something in nature to an object in your home? Even simple items can be made up of many different resources. They may travel through many locations before they get to you. For example, when you are at the mall with your friends, you might see a leather belt that you would like to buy. Before it arrived at the mall, a truck shipped it from a warehouse. The leather for the belt came from a tannery in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where workers take cows traded from India and process the skins using chemicals and the local water. TYPES OF NATURAL RESOURCES Natural resources are materials found in nature that we find useful or valuable. They are very important in our daily lives and help us meet our needs and wants. There are three categories of natural resources: renewable, flow, and non-renewable (Figure 5.1). RENEWABLE RESOURCES Renewable resources are resources that can replace themselves as long as we use them carefully. Trees, crops, fish stocks, and soil are all examples of renewable resources. If we cut down trees to build houses or to make paper, new trees can grow to replace them. But this process takes time, so it is important that we use the trees carefully and avoid overusing them. FLOW RESOURCES Flow resources are resources that are replaced by natural actions whether people use them or not. Wind; ocean currents, flowing rivers, and streams; and sunlight are all flow resources. Flow resources move around due to natural actions in the environment. They must be used where they are found as they cannot be captured or stored. NON-RENEWABLE RESOURCES Non-renewable resources are resources that are in limited supply. Once we use these resources, they are gone. They cannot be replaced. Non-renewable resources include minerals, such as gold, iron, and nickel, and fossil fuels, such as oil and coal. These resources are created under a particular set of conditions and take thousands in some cases millions of years to be ready to use. natural resource something found in nature that people find useful or valuable, such as trees, fruit, fish, clean air, and copper renewable resource a resource that can regrow or reproduce as long as it is not overused flow resource a resource that must be used up when and where it is found or it is lost non-renewable resource a resource that is limited and cannot be replaced if it is used up 140 UNIT 2: Our World s Natural Resources: Use and Sustainability

2 B C FIGURE 5.1 Mountains (A), forests (B), and rivers (C) are all sources of natural resources. I wonder what natural resources are represented in each photo? THE IMPORTANCE OF SUSTAINABILITY We need to think about how we can use natural resources in more sustainable ways. This means using resources in ways that do not use them up or destroy them for a long period of time. For example, rotating crops is a sustainable farming practice. When farmers rotate their crops, they grow different plants in the same location in the following year. This uses different kinds of nutrients in the soil and helps to preserve the land. When only a single type of plant is grown in the same spot every year, the soil eventually becomes unusable. Sustainable actions can be challenging as they often involve complex relationships between resources, people, and places. sustainable describes an approach to using resources in a way that does not use them up or destroy them for a long time CHAPTER 5: Our Needs and Wants and the Environment 141

3 LOCATING NATURAL RESOURCES In Unit 1, you learned about the patterns and interrelationships of the physical environment: landforms, climate, vegetation, and rivers and oceans. Natural resources are located all over the world. Some countries have more natural resources than others, and some natural resources exist in only a few places. NATURAL RESOURCES AND THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT Understanding the physical environment is important in understanding natural resources. For example, you learned about plate tectonics in Chapter 1 and the role they have in creating and changing landforms. But plate tectonics also determine the location of oil and gas reservoirs. They help to create the conditions that create oil and gas over millions of years. The movement of the plates also helps to free the oil and gas and bring it closer to Earth s surface, where it can be extracted. To extract a resource means to remove it from the natural environment. The physical environment determines the location of other kinds of natural resources as well. For example, climate determines what kinds of forests grow in different locations. Some parts of the world, such as Canada, have a climate that is particularly suitable for boreal forests, which means that Canada is rich in timber as a natural resource. A place with a sunny climate like Egypt is better able to use solar energy than a country like Norway, which receives much less sunlight (Figure 5.2). USING NATURAL RESOURCES TO MEET NEEDS AND WANTS People use natural resources in a variety of ways and for a variety of purposes. Natural resources are used for food, to build shelters, to make clothing, and to provide us with energy to get from place to place. A single natural resource can be used in many forms for different purposes. For example, trees provide lumber for homes, wood for furniture, logs for fuel, and pulp for making paper. We can also use trees to set up a hammock or build a tree house. 142 UNIT 2: Our World s Natural Resources: Use and Sustainability extract to remove natural resources from the natural environment, such as oil from oil reserves What geographic characteristics would you use to describe different places? FIGURE 5.2 Norway is so close to the Arctic Circle that during winter months, parts of the country experience polar night. During polar night, the night lasts for more than 24 hours. How does the location of natural resources affect how we use them?

4 GLOBAL PRODUCTS People have come to consider electronics like computers a necessity. They are made up of multiple natural resources, particularly non-renewable resources. If you ever look at where a product such as a computer is made, the box will probably tell you that it came from one place. In fact, a computer is made with many natural resources from all over the world. Some of the resources, such as coltan (a metallic ore), come from one location but have to be processed somewhere else. Throwing away a computer also affects other parts of the world. Many electronic devices end up in landfills around the world, creating toxic electronic waste, or e-waste, that harms the environment. So, not only do these products use up natural resources when they are made, they also affect the environment after they have been thrown away. Did you know your computer is a global product? Examine Figure 5.3 to see where your computer might have come from and what could happen to it after you throw it out. FIGURE 5.3 Computers are often world travellers. The resources used to make them come from many regions in the world. 1 TO MAKE 1 COMPUTER THE LIFE OF A COMPUTER It takes 225 kg of fossil fuels. It takes 23 kg of chemicals. It takes 1.5 tonnes of water. 2 3 A computer is made using non-renewable resources such as coltan copper gold lead mercury platinum which are mined from countries such as Democratic Republic of Congo Chile Australia China then travel to these countries to be processed and turned into parts: 4 5 United States (coltan processing) Sweden (copper smelter) Peru (hard drive construction) Singapore (hard drive construction) Ireland (computer chips) Kazakhstan (insulation) Malaysia (circuit board) All these pieces are sent to a location such as China for assembly and processing. Computers are shipped using trucks and boats to stores all over the world before you buy one and bring it home. The average lifespan of a computer is 3 to 5 years. Over computers are thrown out every day in the United States. Only 20% are recycled. The rest are sent to landfills in China, India, and Africa, South Africa Brazil polluting waterways and exposing people to dangerous chemicals. CHAPTER 5: Our Needs and Wants and the Environment 143

5 144 UNIT 2: Our World s Natural Resources: Use and Sustainability

6 USING NATURAL RESOURCES FOR LEISURE When we talk about how natural resources are used, we do not usually think about relaxation and recreation. But people often use natural resources for those reasons. People camp in forests, canoe on lakes and rivers, and picnic in parks. Tourism also has an impact on natural resources. What kind of physical environments do you prefer? FIGURE 5.4 Hundreds of people climb Mount Everest every year. How can I enjoy the environment without causing damage? THE IMPACT OF TOURISM Tourism is a huge global industry that generates billions of dollars in revenue and provides millions of jobs. It is the main industry of many countries. Tourism has many benefits for travellers. Learning about different places and experiencing different ways of living can give us insight into people and environments around the world. But tourism also has some negative aspects. Tourists need places to stay, food to eat, and activities they can do. These often come at a cost to the natural environment. Building resorts often takes away habitat for wildlife. It also reduces the amount of land where local food can be grown. Often, tourism can put a strain on the available resources in an area. Mount Everest is an example of the impact tourists can have on the environment. More and more people are attempting to climb the tallest mountain in the world. This has led to a significant garbage problem on the mountain. Looking at Figure 5.4, we can see the crowd of tourists just below the top of Mount Everest. Garbage does not decompose because of elevation of the mountain. Waste left behind, even from 50 years ago, is still on the mountain. Experts estimate that there are 9 tonnes of trash on Everest. This kind of damage can happen at tourist destinations all over the world. In parts of Africa, tourist operators drive four-wheeled vehicles through the landscape. This has had a negative impact on the wildlife, often resulting in animals neglecting their young or becoming ill. More and more travel and tourism companies recognize that their customers care about the environment. The ecotourism industry is growing by 10 to 15 percent a year. Ecotourism enables people to enjoy natural resources in a way that reduces the environmental impact of travel. CHECK-IN 1. GATHER AND ORGANIZE Work with a partner to find or create two images of each kind of natural resource (renewable, flow, and non-renewable). Write a caption for each one to explain why it fits into its specific category. 2. GEOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE How can we reduce the impact of e-waste on human and natural environments? 3. SPATIAL SIGNIFICANCE Pick an item of clothing you are wearing and check the tag. Where was it made? In a group, take a world map and label where each person s piece of clothing is from. What patterns do you notice? CHAPTER 5: Our Needs and Wants and the Environment 145