Find a candidate for "planet essence"

In many stories, there is the idea about "planet essence" or something that:

• Can be extracted from the planet.
• Very useful for human industry once extracted.
• Has large reserve, but not very large. (or else water and air will be included). Exhaustion should be real, but not in near future.
• The extraction make the planet much less habitable for life, for a very long time (geological time).
• Not very obvious (should not include atmosphere, ocean, ground, fossil fuel, ...)

What is a real life candidate for this "planet essence", and with what mechanic?

posted about 8 years ago

DTN‭

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