the corner office

I've often wondered what the world will do for kitchen counters when we run out of quarryable granite. I have concluded that this is not something worth worrying about; I don't how much granite the world has remaining but I expect the answer lies somewhere on the happy side of both "lots" and "plenty."

A couple of years ago I saw an episode of Coast showing sand being dredged off the coast of Wales and the presenter saying "there's only so much sand in the world, and when it's all used up, it's all used up." The word "soon" wasn't mentioned, but you start wondering.

The problem applies equally to many other things, like soil, and the magic stuff that makes crops grow (quoted at; via):

Modern high-production, single-crop agriculture today is very dependent on finite mined resources, which, if used wastefully, could easily cause a severe problem within 50 years and, if used sensibility and sparsely, could last for perhaps 200 years. And then what? You must recycle and farm super intelligently, as if your life depended on it. And it will.

This could be quite a depressing thought. But I think we will be OK.