RESOURCES GONE BY 2050 IF CURRENT TRENDS CONTINUE

[Jcrowley]

BEIJING (Reuters) - Humans are stripping nature at an unprecedented rate and will need two planets' worth of natural resources every year by 2050 on current trends, the WWF conservation group said on Tuesday.
Populations of many species, from fish to mammals, had fallen by about a third from 1970 to 2003 largely because of human threats such as pollution, clearing of forests and overfishing, the group also said in a two-yearly report.

"For more than 20 years we have exceeded the earth's ability to support a consumptive lifestyle that is unsustainable and we cannot afford to continue down this path," WWF Director-General James Leape said, launching the WWF's 2006 Living Planet Report.

"If everyone around the world lived as those in America, we would need five planets to support us," Leape, an American, said in Beijing. People in the United Arab Emirates were placing most stress per capita on the planet ahead of those in the United States, Finland and Canada, the report said.

Australia was also living well beyond its means.The average Australian used 6.6 "global" hectares to support their developed lifestyle, ranking behind the United States and Canada, but ahead of the United Kingdom, Russia, China and Japan.

"If the rest of the world led the kind of lifestyles we do here in Australia, we would require three-and-a-half planets to provide the resources we use and to absorb the waste," said Greg Bourne, WWF-Australia chief executive officer.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061024/ts_nm/environment_wwf_planet_dc

[nam78_two]

1. Yup-posted this in the environment forum an hour back

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=70296&mesg_id=70296

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=70295&mesg_id=70295


Interesting difference between the eco-footprints the WWF came up with and a study that I posted here two weeks back.

[Jcrowley]

3. Can you repost that previous study

that you put up two weeks ago?

If we are serious about ending poverty, we have to be serious about ending the systems for wealth creation which create poverty by robbing the poor of their resources, livelihoods and incomes. Before we can make poverty history, we need to get the history of poverty right. It’s not about how much more we can give, so much as how much less we can take.

[nam78_two]

4. Planet Enters "Ecological Debt"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6033407.stm
Note the ecological footprints chart -look how the US is at the top of the list.

Planet enters 'ecological debt'

Growing demand eats into Earth's natural capital, say the authors
Rising consumption of natural resources means that humans began "eating the planet" on 9 October, a study suggests.
The date symbolised the day of the year when people's demands exceeded the Earth's ability to supply resources and absorb the demands placed upon it.

The figures' authors said the world first "ecological debt day" fell on 19 December 1987, but economic growth had seen it fall earlier each year.

The data was produced by a US-based think-tank, Global Footprint Network.

The New Economics Foundation (Nef), a UK think-tank that helped compile the report, had published a study that said Britain's "ecological debt day" in 2006 fell on 16 April.

The authors said this year's global ecological debt day meant that it would take the Earth 15 months to regenerate what was consumed this year.

"By living so far beyond our environmental means and running up ecological debts means we make two mistakes," said Andrew Simms, Nef's policy director.

"First, we deny millions globally who already lack access to sufficient land, food and clean water the chance to meet their needs. Secondly, we put the planet's life support mechanisms in peril," he added.

[Jcrowley]

10. Proving again

America's #1

[nam78_two]

12. 1998 UN study on conspicuous consumption

I am certain things have turned around by now and we are consuming a lot less :sarcasm:


Today’s consumption is undermining the environmental resource base. It is exacerbating inequalities. And the dynamics of the consumption-poverty-inequality-environment nexus are accelerating. If the trends continue without change — not redistributing from high-income to low-income consumers, not shifting from polluting to cleaner goods and production technologies, not promoting goods that empower poor producers, not shifting priority from consumption for conspicuous display to meeting basic needs — today’s problems of consumption and human development will worsen.

… The real issue is not consumption itself but its patterns and effects.

… Inequalities in consumption are stark. Globally, the 20% of the world’s people in the highest-income countries account for 86% of total private consumption expenditures — the poorest 20% a minuscule 1.3%. More specifically, the richest fifth:

Consume 45% of all meat and fish, the poorest fifth 5%
Consume 58% of total energy, the poorest fifth less than 4%
Have 74% of all telephone lines, the poorest fifth 1.5%
Consume 84% of all paper, the poorest fifth 1.1%
Own 87% of the world’s vehicle fleet, the poorest fifth less than 1%
Runaway growth in consumption in the past 50 years is putting strains on the environment never before seen.

— Human Development Report 1998 Overview, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/1998/en/pdf/hdr_1998_overview.pdf
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Consumption.asp

[Jcrowley]

15. To quote

"This section looks at the rise of the consumer and the development of the mass consumer society. While consumption has of course been a part of our history, in the last 100 years or so, the level of mass consumption beyond basics has been exponential and is now a fundamental part of many economies. Luxuries that had to be turned into necessities and how entire cultural habits had to be transformed for this consumption is introduced here.'

Thanks much for that, I'm gonna read through more of that tomorrow. I've been telling my students for years, and any others who will listen, that what is needed is less of everything and that our conventional ideas of wealth are the real disease and what we think of as poverty is merely a symptom.

[nam78_two]

17. You are very welcome

I am curious to see if there is a similar study thats more recent-will root about for it-it will in all probability be scarier :yoiks:!
Good that you are telling your students about that sort of stuff. I have considered doing that as a TA sometimes, but the U. would probably have fired my ass.
And anyway I teach engineering classes and those guys just aren't very receptive to that sort of stuff :-/.

[Jcrowley]

19. What I'd like to see

are some figures on what level of income represents that 20% as measured in US dollars. I recall a figure from years back put out by Les Brown's org. and it was something like $12,500. Think about that. That means those making the equivalent of say $20,000 are living way beyond the means of the planet and yet the way the system is set up it is nearly impossible to live on less than that especially if you have children. The tide is rising.

[DainBramaged]

2. Shit, I'll be dead (or 99) so I guess I better get ready for the shortage

:rofl: :rofl: :popcorn: :hide:

[davekriss]

13. Ya' sound like George Bush!

"In the long run, we're all dead."

One thing to note, though, it's not like we get to live merrily on until we hit a sudden brick wall of ecological catastrophe and deprivation. The world will experience woe long before then in the form of starvation, disease, mass migrations, and wars. Kind of like bacterial bloom in a Petri dish, where the population overshoots supply and as a result both the population and supply crash together in massive die-off.

On a brighter note, the Republicans will lose seats this election. :)

[DainBramaged]

14. I know, but don't I get an old age pass somewhere down the road?

[WinkyDink]

5. Yeah, so will I be.

[nam78_two]

6. If you have kids they will be around

:).

I will be 71 in 2050....

[leftchick]

7. I can not read this stuff anymore

I am not going to be alive in 50 years yet my children will be. Every study prediction brings me the same sense of dread and I can no longer read them. They absolutely terrify me. :cry:


This I do..... Donate to WWF, NRDC, Greenpeace, among many. I also educate my own children as to the effects of GW and took them to see An Inconvenient Truth. We also do all we can at a personal level to become more :Green:.

This sickens me . :(

[nam78_two]

9. We are engaging in trans-generational tyranny

That is the best term I can think of.
Not only are we, in a sense, generally robbing the poorest people on the planet, we are robbing the unborn as well :-/...

(I donate to all those groups too btw :toast:!)

[sweetheart]

8. here is my version of that:

http://www.congressin30seconds.com/?mlink=293

[derby378]

11. Worst-case scenario: Earth shakes us off like fleas on a dog

Could be drought, could be famine, could be a new ice age. Could be we simply turn on each other and fight over the last remaining oilfields and uranium mines.

Of course, there is still time to avoid this sort of thing...

[Selatius]

16. Everytime a politicians says we need to exercise discipline and cut back...

he gets his ass voted out of office. That's the lesson I got when I looked at what happened when Carter said maybe we should run up the power a little less to deaden the impact of fuel shortages.

[Jcrowley]

18. Collapse of ecosystems likely if plunder continues

Collapse of ecosystems likely if plunder continues

John Vidal, environment editor
Wednesday October 25, 2006
The Guardian


Humans are living well beyond their ecological means and are now exhausting natural resources at an unprecedented rate. In so doing, says WWF's bi-annual report, we are threatening ourselves and all other species with extinction.

New calculations on the decline in the planet's capacity to provide food, fibre and timber, and absorb carbon dioxide, suggest we are using 25% more resources than are renewed naturally in a year.

This ecological "overshoot", which has been growing steadily for nearly 40 years, will on present trends be 100% by 2050, making the likelihood of large-scale ecosystem collapse likely, and conflict and political tension certain, says the environmental group's report.

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/conservation/story/0,,1930722,00.html

[Jcrowley]

20. Coral Reefs

VANISHING IN THE WILD: CORAL REEFS

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has named coral reefs as one of the life-support systems essential for our own survival. Found around coastlines in the tropics, coral reefs provide homes for about a third of all fish species on Earth and numerous other marine organisms.

Reefs are physically as well as biologically important; they play a fundamental role in protecting coastlines from erosion and contribute to the formation of white sandy beaches. These complex, fragile ecosystems are deteriorating at an alarming rate worldwide.

Coral reefs actually are communities of hundreds of thousands of tiny animals called coral polyps, which grow in sunlit shallows of warm, clear marine waters. The reefs are built up as new corals attach atop the skeletons of dead animals.

Causes of Endangerment

Pollution, Overexploitation and Recreation

The coral species that are the reef's foundation have very specific needs for light, temperature, salinity, and oxygen. They are easily damaged or killed because of these complex requirements for survival. Human-caused deterioration lessens the reef's ability to withstand natural events such as hurricanes, cyclones, and other storms. Reefs are sensitive to unusually warm waters caused by El Nino, a phenomenon thought to be connected to global warming. Large areas of reef died in Costa Rica, Panama, and the Galapagos during the El Nino event of 1984.

Population and development pressures have contributed significantly to loss of coral reefs and other coastal habitats, such as salt marshes, mangrove forests, and seagrass beds, and the fisheries that depend on these. Reefs are smothered by erosion from deforestation and dredging of rivers and bays.

http://www.bagheera.com/inthewild/van_anim_coralrf.htm

[MadHound]

21. So, it is up to each of us, individually, to do what we can to avert this

Looming catastrophe. Governmental agencies are going to do too little, too late, therefore it is up to us. Buy a fuel efficient vehicle, better yet, buy a diesel and run biodiesel through it. Grow a garden, using rainwater that you've captured in a rainbarrel. Buy local food, join a CSA. If you own a house, install an array of solar panels or if you have the room, a wind turbine. Insulate your house well. All of this and more we can each do, and while it may not seem like we're doing much, the cumulative effect can be quite large.

We can't afford to wait on our so called leaders, it is time we each took the lead.

[Jcrowley]

22. When tinkering

the first rule is to keep all of the parts.