Create a 5 pages page paper that discusses analysis of the problem of exhaustible resources. Our planet is a closed ecosystem of environmental resources and life in which the sustainability of any human activity is dependent upon the responsible exploitation of natural resources. In their research study entitled ‘The Limits to Growth – A Report to The Club of Rome’, Meadows et al. (1972) came to the conclusion that, “If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years.”&nbsp.

Our environment consists of land, air, water and mineral resources on the one hand, and the vast variety of life forms that have evolved in this physical world over millions of years. Each of these living and non-living entities is our natural resources. Among all living things, human beings have the greatest ability to harness these natural resources to create a world of comfort and luxury and proceeded to do so. In the process, change has become the hallmark of human existence in the material world – a change that involves abandoning the old and embracing the new. Change is occurring due to man’s needs growing exponentially as a result of scientific progress and enterprise. Since matter can neither be created nor destroyed as postulated by Dalton, the human race is caught in the spiral of development that is using up the available but finite resources, and damaging the ecological balance by releasing pollutants and junk into the environment.

The industrial revolution of the 19th century, decolonization and democratization of the 20th century, and the revolutionary development of the information and communication technologies (ICT) since the 1980s have been the successive causes for the worldwide change in the demand-supply dynamics.&nbsp. Living standards in the developed nations of the west, Europe and Japan have improved significantly over the years, a fact that was being increased noted around the world.