Once upon a time...by Muhammed Mikhail A Hafidz | 29-07-2017 10:06 |
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 I have a short story to share with you. Once upon a time, a little blue planet was occupied by a dominant species which called themselves humans. They fully rely on the planet to live. However, the humans? population increased rapidly and there was not much resources left on the planet. Then, they ran out of essentials that support their existence and eventually extinct on the little blue planet. The end. Well, that is indeed a depressing story. But believe it or not, it is not a random science fiction story that you might enjoy in the movies. It is actually one of the theory of how humans will extinct. There are signs that illustrate the probability of the theory and I will show you. First, our global population is currently at 7.2 billion and growing. Second, our little blue planet, Earth, has a total resource which are only good for 2 billion people at the current demand. Let?s do the math. It is obvious that the result is not too pretty because a dry desolated Earth is not a fun place to live in. Based on the story, what were the depleted resources? Consequently, in our world, there are three natural resources that are depleting at a very fast pace. The first natural resource is of course, water. Being the essential of all living things, water depletion is considered to be more serious than current oil depletion. We do have substitutes for oil, but we will never have anything to replace our drinking water. There are only 2.5% fresh water of the whole Earth?s water and less than 70% of it is frozen. The available fresh water that remains are used mostly in agriculture, industry, and human consumption. The consequences will not only be the shortage of drinking water, it will also affect food supply thus increasing famine and poverty. Moving on, the next depleting natural resource is oil. Without the liquid fuels from petroleum, nothing can be moved, manufactured, transported, built, planted, mined or harvested. We are informed that oil is a popular non-renewable resource due to the industrial boom. Moreover, it is estimated to only last for 25 years to go. Ironically, oil accounts for 40% of all the energy we use. Nevertheless, efforts are underway to develop cheaper and more sustainable energy resources including solar power, wind power, and many more renewable energy that could replace oils and fossil fuels. Last but not least, the resource that is often overlooked in our society is forests. To see the effects of forest depletion is very easy – imagine a world without trees. The consequences are very devastating and we are just close to that reality because half of the world?s forest has already been cleared. Each year, an estimated 18 million acres of forests are destroyed. Though forests play an important role in reducing global warming and climate change because of their ability to soak up greenhouse gases, deforestation contributes to 17% of global greenhouse gas emissions annually. Other contributions of forests include the production of oxygen, that is our necessity, and the habitat they provide for millions of species. The main reason we are facing forests depletion is urbanization. Illegal logging and agriculture also contributes to this global issue. It is crystal clear that we are responsible for the resource depletions. Then again, the story is not finish yet. We can still rewrite our own story if and only if every single one of us play their respective roles. It does seem impossible for one to stop the factors of resource depletion, still we can do something. The small things that we can easily do is buying electrical appliances that are energy efficient. This is to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emissions. We can also practice to use transports other than cars whenever it is possible. Go paperless and use only recycled products to save trees. Besides, why not plant a beautiful tree wherever you can? As a conclusion, I really hope the theory will continue to be a deceit and that we can end our story happily ever after, just like in the movies. The end. References:
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