The most important problem with renewable resources is that they are on the brink—some have gone over it—of becoming nonrenewable. The amount of usable land, water, and timber decreases rapidly. Land disappears into deserts or under pavement. Every year a million and a quarter acres of rural land, a third of it cultivated cropland, are given over to other uses—chiefly  urban expansion. Cities tend to become greedier as they grow; from 1960 to 1970, the land area of urban centers expanded by 40 percent while population grew by 24 percent. At the same time, formerly good rangeland is deteriorating. The

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