[retrac]

This is something I learned about iron recently. We're not running out of it, thankfully. The planet is mostly iron, after all. But it perhaps helps drive home the sheer scale of modern industrial civilization.

More steel was manufactured per year [1] in the 2010s, than humanity produced in its entire history up to World War I. The whole century of the industrial revolution -- from the Eiffel Tower, to the steam ships, railways -- is but a drop in the ocean of material production by today's standards.

Most basic resources have a similar looking chart. And not everything is as abundant as iron.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/VBIN1RF.png