Are the Natural Resources of the Earth Limited?

Every now and then we can hear hysterical voices, threatening that the humankind will exhaust all the natural resources of our Earth in 10, 20, 100 years (the exact figure varies according to the level of anxiety of every particular doomsayer). But how much credit should we pay to such predictions?

The history itself suggests that all the predictions of the end of the world in any of its senses have been false. No matter whether it is atypical pneumonia, the Large Hadron Collider launch or the exhaustion of fossil fuels, there is, in fact, nothing any single human being can do about them but panicking. Even if we believe that the natural resources will come to an end, how this knowledge may help us?

And the very history of humankind shows us that there are no grounds for panic. Steam engine that worked on coal appeared only a couple of centuries ago; people didn’t know how to utilize gas and oil until much later; in the beginning of the 20th centuries no one had any idea of the existence of nuclear energy. The reality shows that the circumstances change faster than any predictions can predict. What was considered impossible a hundred years ago is commonplace nowadays. What was considered to be unavoidable to happen in a couple of decades may only provoke laughter if said now.

If human race will ever exhaust any resource it has up to the end, it won’t happen until a substitute for it will have been long ago discovered or invented. Humanity has nothing to be afraid of in this respect.