# Have Humans exhausted a Natural resource in recent memory? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 30, 2011, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248 "2011-04-30T01:49:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/1 "2011-04-30T01:49:14Z")
Is there any resource that Humans have rendered, for lack of better terms, extinct? That is, have we as a race consciously decided [one way or another] to use X Y or Z unchecked, _ **in the past 500 years or so** _, to the point that it no longer exists? In the past 2,500 years? Obviously certain animals would make this list, but I am asking about minerals and vegetation - for the most part, you could substitute an animal for another. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/2 "2011-04-30T02:24:15Z")
Whales, Buffalo and beavers come to mind. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/3 "2011-04-30T02:31:37Z")
No offense, but I think you need to re-read the OP. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/4 "2011-04-30T02:32:19Z")
Lots of vegetation has gone extinct due to the influence of humans. Some minerals and elements are getting harder to find, but I don’t think they are extinct. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/5 "2011-04-30T02:43:32Z")
Extinct extinct, or exhausted from a society’s habitat? The Easter Island trees spring to mind. An island small enough to look across, and at some point, someone looked at the very last tree standing and cut it down to roll a giant stone statue a few more feet. Mind-boggling. (Yes, I understand this is only one theory about Easter Island’s deforestation, but it’s so cynical that I have to love it.) Of course, we still have trees elsewhere, off the island. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/6 "2011-04-30T02:44:31Z")
Of course, several species has gone extinct: (1) In the Americas, when man entered, large number of species went extinct, including mamooths, horses, large armadillos, and others. I just wonder how history had evolved if horses would had survived. (2) In Easter Island the native palm tree went extinct, leaving the island without large trees. This extiction caused a collapse in the ancient lifestyle of the island. No more moais could be build (no more rollers or levers to move them), but they couldn’t built boats anymore either, so high seas fishing stopped, contributing to hunger. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/7 "2011-04-30T02:45:50Z")
Innocence? Intelligence? ---
**Author:** ![glenarma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a88e4f/32.png) [@glenarma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glenarma)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/8 "2011-04-30T02:50:26Z")
The Romans harvested silphium to extinction: [The Master speaks](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2676/did-the-ancient-romans-use-a-natural-herb-for-birth-control) ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/9 "2011-04-30T03:08:21Z")
The clay used for Yixing pottery (especially tea ware). Jared Diamond wrote a book about this. Here’s his first paragraph on [Easter Island](http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/24/042.html): In just a few centuries, the people of Easter Island wiped out their forest, drove their plants and animals to extinction, and saw their complex society spiral into chaos and cannibalism. Are we about to follow their lead? ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/10 "2011-04-30T03:15:57Z")
Indeed. This is a Moai Kava Kava. A tragic and pathetic imagen of the hunger that followed the ecological disaster of Easter Island [http://www.famadit.cl/kavakava.jpg](http://www.famadit.cl/kavakava.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/11 "2011-04-30T03:20:59Z")
We hunted the [passenger pigeon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_Pigeon) into extinction. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/12 "2011-04-30T04:27:04Z")
The Romans also did in the mollusc they got the imperial purple dye from. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/13 "2011-04-30T04:39:20Z")
I don’t think it’s completely exhausted, but how much guano is left? ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/14 "2011-04-30T04:59:35Z")
I recall seeing an episode of the UK Antiques Roadshow where they showed decorative vessels made of a sort of brightly coloured quarried stone that was unique to a particular source. It had all been used up. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/15 "2011-04-30T06:05:38Z")
[Apparently we may exhaust the Earth’s helium supply in the next couple of decades.](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/why-the-world-is-running-out-of-helium-2059357.html) ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/17 "2011-04-30T06:42:03Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > The Romans also did in the mollusc they got the imperial purple dye from. I don’t think that is correct - there still are quite a few species of Murex out there (in fact, some of them are still used in the making of traditional purple dyes). It’s however possible they could have killed off one particular variety. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/18 "2011-04-30T06:43:22Z")
Difficult question to answer in part because (as far as I know) the rigorous scientific documentation of extinctions doesn’t extend very far back in history. Even today we know little about what we may be killing (or, for that matter, spawning) aside from what we extrapolate from limited samples. Wikipedia lists a bunch of [modern extinct plants](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_plants#Modern_extinctions). I’m not sure whether any of them would qualify as a “resource” as defined by their known value to humans. Localized resource depletion (as opposed to global extinction of a resource) may be more easily witnessed, but I don’t want to take the thread offtrack unless you want to go there. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/19 "2011-04-30T11:01:58Z")
> [@Meeko](#): > > Obviously certain animals would make this list, but I am asking about minerals and vegetation - for the most part, you could substitute an animal for another. Just since a few people seem to have missed this. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/20 "2011-04-30T16:01:37Z")
Note that most minerals will never be mined to exhaustion, they will simply be mined to the point where whatever traces remain are not worth mining. Does that fit your definition, or are you looking for things that we have literally gone after every last scrap of? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248/21 "2011-04-30T19:59:26Z")
> [@](#): > > Obviously certain animals would make this list, but I am asking about minerals and vegetation - for the most part, you could substitute an animal for another. I don’t follow. What animal replaces whales for whale oil? And why couldn’t the same be said of plants? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-humans-exhausted-a-natural-resource-in-recent-memory/580248.md?page=2)