Dear Global Citizens,

            Hello, I am writing this letter to explain the importance and solutions of Natural Resource Depletion and why we should care about it. Natural resource depletion is the consumption of a natural resource faster than it can be replenished. In my opinion, natural resource depletion is the most significant environmental issue in our world because it can cause us to lose all of the natural resources living organisms need to survive. A couple examples of natural resource depletion can be seen in farming, fishing, mining, water usage, and consumption of fossil fuels. Scientific studies have showed that two thirds of our world’s natural resources are used up. This means that this issue should not be taken lightly. On average, everyone uses about 16 kilos of resources extracted from earth every day, metal, fossil energy, and minerals. If you live in the western world this number is much higher, reaching up to 57 kilos of newly mined minerals per day. Let’s talk about water usage, the average American uses about 80-100 gallons of water per day. A mistake that a lot of us make is believing that all the water we used gets recycled into fresh water. Think about it this way, we flush, the water gets cleaned and put back into the water stream, but where does the waste go? Workers at water treatment plants get to deal with that, the waste gets burned. After the waste is all burned up it seems like all problems are solved, but they are not. Burning the waste introduces the environment with pollution, this pollution can also pollute our water which is making the water dirtier and harder for us to treat. As a result, we have to pay loads of money for higher quality water treatment plants which in the long run adds more taxes to citizens. Although the water looks clean, there are still many things that are almost impossible to get rid of in our water we use. As a result, we are running out of fresh natural water to drink, just like natural minerals found in earth. We need to stop using so many resources are we are going to run out. This nightmare could soon be a reality if this keeps up. So how can we as a global society use less resources and stop resource depletion? Simple. Use less natural resources. This especially is more targeted towards individuals than governments because I think everyone is responsible for themselves and you should too. A few things we can do is to  use less water, only buy things you need, upgrade to electrical appliances so we do not use fuel and new appliances are more efficient than old, recycle and be more efficient with the materials you have. Write on both sides of the piece of paper, drink out of glass cups instead of paper cups you are going to just throw away. We should all care about natural resource depletion for two main reasons, one being that in the end we will run out of resources if we continue to use them like we do now and two being that once it gets harder to produce natural resources, the price of the resources will sky rocket and for example, only rich people will be able to afford a bag of grapes. I think that we should all as a community target companies to manufacture products more efficiently, use less natural resources, creating less pollution by using less and to be aware of this situation and persuade them to strive for these goals. In other words, companies should use less and manufacture more by being more efficient.  Small measures taken by everyone can have a significant effect if everyone strives to be more efficient. I hope I have raised awareness for natural resource depletion and convinced we as a society to cut down on are consumption of natural resources. Thank you.

                                                Sincerely,

                                                                   Colin Smith