Human Consumption of Earth's Natural Resources Has Tripled in 40 Years

[NickB79]

http://www.ecowatch.com/humans-consumption-of-earths-natural-resources-tripled-in-40-years-1943126747.html

Humans' appetite for gnawing away at the fabric of the Earth itself is growing prodigiously. According to a new UN report, the amount of the planet's natural resources extracted for human use has tripled in 40 years.

A report produced by the International Resource Panel (IRP), part of the UN Environment Programme, says rising consumption driven by a growing middle class has seen resources extraction increase from 22 billion tons in 1970 to 70 billon tons in 2010.

It refers to natural resources as primary materials and includes under this heading biomass, fossil fuels, metal ores and non-metallic minerals.

The increase in their use, the report warns, will ultimately deplete the availability of natural resources—causing serious shortages of critical materials and risking conflict.

I'm sure we can solve this problem; all we have to do is throw a few more solar panels and wind turbines at it

[TheMastersNemesis]

1. Overpopulation Is An Issue No Politician Will Touch. Political Suicide.

Tackling overpopulation is the most dangerous thing a politician can do. If you want everyone after you just bring up the ZPG memes. Bring up limiting family sizes. You might as well drink hemlock.

[pscot]

2. It's a self correcting issue

Apres nous, le dulyuuge.

[Peregrine Took]

3. Absolutely. What is with people?

Frankly when people post those family photos with 10,000 grinning faces I want to cringe. Anything beyond 2 is just too many.

[CrispyQ]

4. Hell, you can't even bring it up on DU.

"No one has the right to tell people how many children they can have."

Okay, let's watch our ecosystem collapse from the weight of humanity.

[TheMastersNemesis]

5. It Is Already Collapsing Under The Weight Of Humanity.

If you look at UN reports on resources and you follow habitat diminishment it is already obvious that the planet is gasping with 7 billion plus people. And the prospect that we will have over 9 billion seems impossible.

Yet every day I see the "family values" meme pushed and the churches are the main purveyors of have as many children as you can. Perhaps Malthus will be proved correct so many years ago.

[hunter]

7. Trouble has always been for many ZPG advocates it's never about THEM.

The scars from white supremacist eugenics movements have never healed.

Overt religious intolerance is another issue.

Who here hasn't laughed at the premise of Idiocracy or mocked the Duggars? That's not a good way to sell birth control.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. The mistake is thinking the problem is overpopulation

http://www.unep.org/resourcepanel/Portals/50244/Global%20extraction%20grows%20IRP%20press%20release%20English.pdf

[font face=Serif][font size=5][center]Worldwide Extraction of Materials Triples in Four Decades, Intensifying Climate Change and Air Pollution[/center][/font]
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• Richest countries consume on average 10 times as many materials as world’s poorest


• Planet will need 180 billion tonnes of material every year by 2050 if trends continue

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[font size=3]20 July 2016 – Rising consumption fuelled by a growing middle class has seen the amount of primary materials extracted from the Earth triple in the last four decades, according to a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme-hosted International Resource Panel (IRP).

The dramatic increase in the use of fossil fuels, metals and other materials will intensify climate change, increase air pollution, reduce biodiversity and ultimately lead to the depletion of natural resources, causing worrying shortages of critical materials and heightening the risk of local conflicts, warns the report.

“The alarming rate at which materials are now being extracted is already having a severe impact on human health and people’s quality of life,” said IRP Co-Chair Alicia Bárcena Ibarra. “It shows that the prevailing patterns of production and consumption are unsustainable.

“We urgently need to address this problem before we have irreversibly depleted the resources that power our economies and lift people out of poverty. This deeply complex problem, one of humanity’s biggest tests yet, calls for a rethink of the governance of natural resource extraction to maximize its contribution to sustainable development at all levels.”

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Report: http://unep.org/documents/irp/16-00271_LW_GlobalMaterialFlowsUNE_SUMMARY_FINAL_160701.pdf
Summary: http://unep.org/documents/irp/16-00271_LW_GlobalMaterialFlowsUNE_SUMMARY_FINAL_160701.pdf