Q1.
Take a pause. Look at yourself and the things around you. What is the origin of each of them? At some point they all lead to Nature; even the plastic button on your shirt.
Answer
Every object in the room traces back to Nature — usually through several steps, which is exactly why the origin is easy to forget.
| Thing | Made from | Which comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Cotton shirt | Cotton fibre | A plant grown in soil, on water and sunlight |
| Plastic button | A polymer made from petrochemicals | Petroleum — the remains of living things buried for millions of years |
| Notebook and this textbook | Paper | Wood pulp from trees |
| Steel compass, blade, cycle | Steel | Iron ore mined from the ground, smelted using coal |
| Glass window | Glass | Silica sand, melted at high heat |
| Wall of the classroom | Cement, sand, bricks | Limestone, sand, clay — and a great deal of energy |
| Electricity in the fan | Generated in a power station | Coal, flowing water, sunlight or wind |
| Your lunch | Grain, vegetables, milk | Soil, water, sunlight, and animals fed on plants |
| Your own body | Food, water, air | Nature, continuously — you are not an exception to the list |
Why the chapter asks you to pause: the more steps there are between a thing and its origin, the less natural it looks. A button feels manufactured and a mango feels natural — yet both begin in Nature. Once you have traced the chain, ‘resource' stops being a word about mines and forests far away and becomes a word about the objects on your own desk. That change of view is the point of the whole chapter.
Check it yourself: pick up any five things you touched this morning. For each, write the chain in three arrows: object → material → element of Nature. If you cannot complete a chain, that is the interesting one — find out what it is made of.