exhaustion of natural resources? hmm. natural resources are INFINITE by definition since the universe is infinite. what is limited are "reserves". panicking about reserves dwindling is what Tim Worstall calls the 'No breakfast fallacy'
we dont look at our refrigerator which is running out of milk and worry that the world is running out of milk. we know that there is an entire ecosystem of farmers , truckers and supermarkets producing milk for us. the confusion between reserves an resources is common
The clear difference being that in your example, you don't need a large reserve of milk as fuel and materials to reach the next available milk supply.
Natural resources which are accessible are being consumed at high rates, and access to further resources will likely require the use of existing reserves put toward that goal.
