Physically, economically, spiritually – in all sorts of ways, humans are forever connected to their environment.•

• What natural resources are. They come in two types – renewable, and non-renewable.
  
  If harvested sustainably, renewable resources – like a school of fish, or a grassland – can replenish themselves. Non-renewable resources – like copper, or fossil fuels – cannot be replaced.
  
  The basics of natural resources are air, water, and soil quality. These elements provide the foundation for the natural resources found in native prairies, woodlands, wetlands and freshwater systems, oceans, glaciers and mountain snowpack, etc. – as well as all the biodiversity that these ecosystems support.
  
  Natural resources also include the physical world that supports life - heat and air currents in the atmosphere, rocks and minerals far beneath the soil, microscopic chemicals swirling in the ocean currents, etc.
  
  Many natural resources also represent the earth’s major reservoirs of carbon. Through the carbon cycle, these pools are all connected. If one is thrown off balance – such as when carbon is disproportionately redistributed from the geological strata to the atmosphere – it disturbs the entire system beyond the range of normal variations.
  

• Humans and natural resources. With the rise of industrialization, human impact on the environment has increased exponentially in terms of rate and scale.
  
  Humans extract natural resources from the environment, and use them for their own benefit. On the basis of soil quality, for example, humans gradually built an agricultural society.
  
  

  Technology. Humans have developed many technologies to help them adapt to, survive, and extract benefits from natural resources. All technologies have environmental impacts. You cannot accurately measure the environmental impact of a technology until you calculate its true life cycle costs - its entire impact on the ecosystem.
  
  These range from extraction and consumption processes to the by-products of manufacturing - including the sources of energy used during manufacturing, emissions, air and water pollution, waste, impact on human health and wildlife, and end-of-life disposal.
  
  Resource Management. When humans use resources, they always have a choice – will their actions be sustainable, or not? For example, humans should not use an ecosystem past the point of recovery, destroying its natural resilience and powers of regeneration.
  Agriculture is an important mode of resource management - land use patterns, no-till, soil conservation, watershed management, Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands, treatment of wildlands, forestry, etc.
  
  Emerging carbon regulation will make sustainable agricultural practices even more valuable.

• Why natural resources matter.
  
  Natural resources are valuable in their own right, as independent works of creation. However, the ultimate survival of all life – including humanity – also depends on the quality of its environment.
  
  Humans are special creatures. They have not only the ability to reason, but also the capacity to believe in powers far greater than their own. Obligated by this moral imperative, it is not okay for them to deplete natural resources, or use them in ways that destroy habitats or hurt other people.
  
  Natural resources also belong to the future, not to the present. Today’s generation is only the custodian of these resources for future generations. Our children and grandchildren will also need them to support their own quality of life.