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Reminds me of a bumper sticker one of the guys I work with has:
"Earth First! We'll Mine The Rest Of The Planets Later."
Not only do we have to worry about "global warming". Now they say
you aren't going to be able to eat anyhow. Damn people, we need to
get rid of them. They keep screwing up everything here on the planet.
What's a person to do?
Humans living far beyond planet's means: WWF
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Oct 24, 6:29 AM (ET)
By Ben Blanchard
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.
Everyone would have to change lifestyles -- cutting use of fossil fuels and improving management of everything from farming to fisheries.
"As countries work to improve the well-being of their people, they risk bypassing the goal of sustainability," said Leape, speaking in an energy-efficient building at Beijing's prestigous Tsinghua University.
"It is inevitable that this disconnect will eventually limit the abilities of poor countries to develop and rich countries to maintain their prosperity," he added.
The report said humans' "ecological footprint" -- the demand people place on the natural world -- was 25 percent greater than the planet's annual ability to provide everything from food to energy and recycle all human waste in 2003.
In the previous report, the 2001 overshoot was 21 percent.
"On current projections humanity, will be using two planets' worth of natural resources by 2050 -- if those resources have not run out by then," the latest report said.
"People are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn waste back into resources."
RISING POPULATION
"Humanity's footprint has more than tripled between 1961 and 2003," it said. Consumption has outpaced a surge in the world's population, to 6.5 billion from 3 billion in 1960. U.N. projections show a surge to 9 billion people around 2050.
It said that the footprint from use of fossil fuels, whose heat-trapping emissions are widely blamed for pushing up world temperatures, was the fastest-growing cause of strain.
Leape said China, home to a fifth of the world's population and whose economy is booming, was making the right move in pledging to reduce its energy consumption by 20 percent over the next five years.
"Much will depend on the decisions made by China, India and other rapidly developing countries," he added.
The WWF report also said that an index tracking 1,300 vetebrate species -- birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals -- showed that populations had fallen for most by about 30 percent because of factors including a loss of habitats to farms.
Among species most under pressure included the swordfish and the South African Cape vulture. Those bucking the trend included rising populations of the Javan rhinoceros and the northern hairy-nosed wombat in Australia.
(Additional reporting by Alister Doyle in Helsinki)
Reminds me of a bumper sticker one of the guys I work with has:
"Earth First! We'll Mine The Rest Of The Planets Later."
That article made me hungry for South African Cape Vulture.
Sustainability is something we should all be concerned about.
This is NOT a case of some "tree huggers" trying to tell you how to live. This stuff is simple economic and physical reality.
We have gotten something of a free ride so far, but our lifestyles/industries WILL have to change as time goes by, and that is something you can bet on. I will by directing a few of my long term investments at companies that deal with such things.
We need more s.Not only do we have to worry about "global warming". Now they say
you aren't going to be able to eat anyhow. Damn people, we need to
get rid of them. They keep screwing up everything here on the planet.
You worry about it. I am going and doing
some more consuming. Get me a tank of
gas, cut me some trees and eat some of those
animals before they vanish. Anyone got one of
them big old American cars, that ride easy,
steer easy, use lots of gas, that has low mileage
and they want to sell cheap?
(bemused) Hyper individualist to the last, that's my ray.
You forgot the cool smiley that goes with eating animals..
In all due seriousness though, don't you owe your children and grandchildren something more? Use these things up now and they will not think well of our/your generations.
Naw, they are already doing their share of consuming.
Now maybe they should be thinking about their kids
future. Naw. These people are little behind the times,
I think this is about the humpteenth time I have heard
the same old junk. Heck, I was suppose to have
starved to death several times over according to some
of these "experts". Just wonder if they have put
in for their federal grant yet to study the issue some
more. Bet they have.
well at least the damn OZONE is healing itself
"OZONE is healing itself"
huh??
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6077018.stm
=============
for sustainabilty :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6077798.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6080074.stm?lsm
Yeah, it's all a big conspiracy by greenies and lazy Fed-funded intellectuals... what are you, a moron?
The population of the planet increased from 1.5bil to 6.6bil in a century, and consumption of resources per capita far exceeded population growth, but nah, that's not going to have any sort of effect.
When you say that according to experts you should have starved many times, do you ever think why you haven't? Hmmm, that might have been because the Green Revolution and other agricultural technology have vastly increased human food production capacity, but did you ever think about why that is? Well, I'll tell you - most of it is based on increased use of fertilizers and pesticides which are derived from fossil fuels, and irrigating margnial land. Effectively, we placed a mortgage on our natural resources, and we keep increasing the mortgage to fund current consumption, but the debt keeps getting bigger...
So what happens when the fossil fuels become scarce and the rivers run dry, something which is already happening today? Overuse of fertilizers has damaged groundwater and river systems in many places to the point where dry land salinity has made the water and soil unusable, while desertification brought on by climate change is doing the same thing in a different manner. And problems like dry land salinity do not have a gradual onset - you can abuse the groundwater of a region for 50 years, all the while seeing no change in cropping yeilds, and then one day the salt water, which has been rising a few inches a year, pops to the surface and that land is DEAD. You went over the tipping point without noticing, and now you can't grow crops on that land. It is happening all over the world.
You go back to putting your head in the sand, but our grandchildren are going to hate us all for our ignorance and greed at their expense.
And the pity is that these problems are solvable, and the solutions do not require us to go back to living in caves, but we spoiled generations are not willing to moderate our consumption even to the point where it levels out! We just want more and more and more, and who will pay? The earth, and thus our children.
You see unsustainable levels of credit card and other debt mirroring our unsustainable levels of resource consumption, but we just keeping on doing it. Why? Are people happier today than they were a decade or two or five ago? The stats say no. Above a certain threshold of material comfort, greater consumption does not equate to greater happiness. So why? Why the are we so bent on self-destruction? And self-destruction is what we are talking about - ruin the environment and you destroy the living processes all around us that we don't even notice, but which SUSTAIN US.
. Humans suck. So full of potential... and so full of .
Were xrayzebra alive 2000 years ago (or so), Christianity would not exist because xray would have eaten all the fish as though it were a hot dog eating contest, and Jesus would be standing off to the side asking WTF?!!
That is a very valid point. Technological progress has allowed more efficient farms, more efficient use of resources and will continue to do so, up to a point.
People have been predicting "doom and gloom" scenarios for a long time (some since the 1700's), and those scenarios generally have not factored in technological change.
That said, factor this into your thinking:
Human knowledge has been doubling every 10 years. The real “doom and gloom” scenarios used to be just a few people out of the mainstream of science.
Increasingly, as we have learned more and studied things more, we have discovered more and more genuinely alarming trends.
Let me ask you this one seemingly unrelated question:
Do you have homeowners insurance for your house?
I drive really slow in the ultra-fast lane while people behind me are going insane.
Cause Im an asshole
/dennis leary
I see what you are saying, and I have read a similar viewpoint from many others saying that they will rely on good ol' American ingenuity to get us past our current problems (oil etc.) but it seems like in this day for the first time in our short history there is a stagnation of ideas due to the fact that those in power would like to stay there and instead of innovating to do so they are taking the "easy road" by stifling creativity and supporting the status quo. Also, due to the falling rates of education of those in this country there are a lot less people even available to make these technological breakthroughs.
Everyoneone in this thread, please read my post, especially you xray. I want a reply. You think alarm about the state of the environment is nonsense, but in truth you know nothing about it, and when someone comes along and tries to teach you something, you ignore it. What is that about?
at people getting riled up at xray's comments. Why even bother? the dude is stuck living in the 1800s. Dude is so old, Darwin had a sketch of his sorry ass in his journal.
Yeah, good point mania. I take the bait far too easily.
I actually use the political forum as therapy, getting my ideas out makes me feel better, and it's good argument practice.
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