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excerpt from "Conservation As a National Duty" by President Theodore Roosevelt, May 13, 1908 The natural resources . . . can be divided into two sharply distinguished classes accordingly as they are or are not capable of renewal. Mines if used must necessarily be exhausted. The minerals do not and can not renew themselves. Therefore in dealing with the coal, the oil, the gas, the iron, the metals generally, all that we can do is to try to see that they are wisely used. The exhaustion is certain to come in time. We can trust that it will be deferred long enough to enable the extraordinarily inventive genius of our people to devise means and methods for more or less adequately replacing what is lost; but the exhaustion is sure to come. The second class of resources consists of those which can not only be used in such manner as to leave them undiminished for our children, but can actually be improved by wise use. The soil, the forests, the waterways come in this category. Every one knows that a really good farmer leaves his farm more valuable at the end of his life than it was when he first took hold of it. So with the waterways. So with the forests. In dealing with mineral resources, man is able to improve on nature only by putting the resources to a beneficial use which in the end exhausts them; but in dealing with the soil and its products man can improve on nature by compelling the resources to renew and even reconstruct themselves in such manner as to serve increasingly beneficial uses—while the living waters can be so controlled as to multiply their benefits. Which central concept underlies Roosevelt's discussion of renewable and nonrenewable resources?
Throughout the world, peoples who rely on hunting and gathering for their food possess a rich knowledge of their habitats.

Given this fact, which statement from the excerpt is most clearly false?

A. ". . . with what we call civilization and the extension of knowledge, more resources come into use, industries are multiplied, and foresight begins to become a necessary and prominent factor in life."

B. "And yet, rather curiously, at the same time that there comes that increase in what the average man demands from the resources, he is apt to grow to lose the sense of his dependence upon nature."

C. "Savages, and very primitive peoples generally, concern themselves only with superficial natural resources; with those which they obtain from the actual surface of the ground."

D. "With the rise of peoples from savagery to civilization, . . . there comes a steadily increasing growth of the amount demanded by this average man from the actual resources of the country."

Respuesta :

C. "Savages, and very primitive peoples generally, concern themselves only with superficial natural resources; with those which they obtain from the actual surface of the ground."
"Every one knows that a really good farmer leaves his farm more valuable..."

To presume that "Everyone" shares any knowledge is presumptive and way to far reaching. Because It speaks to a male dominated hegemony, for me this phrase undetermines any value potentially gained through this discussion.

Additionally, the examples of wasted resources indicated (Soil, forests and waterways) reflect the language and values of the time (i.e. Turn of the 19th).
I am not suggesting that these three examples are not stil relevant, but rather through exclusion of additional contemporary resources, this discussion, for me, becomes "quaint" and loses value beyond historical relevance.

As a sidebar, the reference to "savagery to civilization" also further underscores the earlier mentioned hegemony.

Regards,

markbrady@mac.com