Energy Conservation

In today’s world, most of us know that it is important to turn off lights and other electrical appliances to conserve energy, but not everyone understands that the reason for the emphasis on cutting back on the use of energy is due to the inevitable depletion of our environment’s nonrenewable resources. Of course, electric power is not the only factor that has lead to our supply of nonrenewable resources declining in recent decades. The overdependence on natural gas and oil to fuel our cars and to heat our homes has also been a huge contributing factor. Although mining minerals does not have a direct effect on energy and the resulting campaign to conserve it, this mining does also contribute to our nonrenewable resources becoming depleted. Considering that nonrenewable resources are a major energy force in powering our homes, businesses, and even our transportation, it is not hard to see where the problem with using them up lies. People have become reliant upon these sources and have started taking them for granted because they have just always been there. The use of electricity is a great example of how people take our resources for granted. Uninhibited use of electrical powered items, such as lights, televisions, computers, and other appliances has lead to using more coal than necessary to power our homes and businesses. Excessive use of natural gas to heat our homes is also wasteful and contributes to the decline of non-renewable resources. A third energy related problem is the overuse of oil. Instead of walking, car-pooling, or using public transportation, many people choose to drive, thus resulting in an excessive overuse of natural oil. This excessive and uninhibited use of non-renewable resources has lead to a very real concern that one day these resources will be completely depleted. Once these resources are gone there is no way of getting them back. The problem is that if these resources are depleted, our main sources of energy are gone for

References: Culverco, I. (2004). Conserve resources. Retrieved March 16, 2008 from http://www.midamericanenergy.com/eew/help/conserve.html Dell, M. (2004, Fall). The Devil 's Excrement. Harvard International Review, 26(3), 38-41. Retrieved March 16, 2008, from Academic Search Premier database. Machado, I., and Suslick, S. (n.d.). Non-Renewable Resources. Earth System: History and Natural Variable. Retrieved March 16, 2008 from http://www.eolss.net/ebooks/Sample%20Chapters/C12/E1-01-02-11.pdf Pezzey, J. (2004, June). Sustainability Policy and Environmental Policy. Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 106(2), 339-359. Retrieved March 16, 2008, from EconLit with Full Text database