11 January 2007
Humans using Earth’s resources too fast
By Jim Pinto
The World Wildlife Fund’s biennial report on the state of the natural world said unless the amount of resources used and the waste produced significantly reduces, humanity will be using double the available resources by 2050. Eventually, ecological assets, such as forests and fisheries, will become harvested to such a degree they might disappear altogether.
Humanity’s ecological footprint—measuring the area of biologically productive land and sea required to provide all the resources used and absorb waste—has more than tripled between 1961 and 2003.
Countries with the largest ecological footprint per person are the United Arab Emirates, the U.S., Finland, Canada, Kuwait, Australia, Estonia, Sweden, New Zealand, and Norway. China is No. 69, but its size and rapid economic growth make it a key player for the sustainable use of the world’s resources.
Another indicator of the strain on natural ecosystems is the decline of about one-third of the more than 1,300 vertebrate species around the world between 1970 and 2003. The loss of natural habitat to cropland and pasture has been particularly acute in the tropics.
Each year, the day that the global economy starts to operate with an ecological deficit is designated as “ecological debt day,” or “overshoot day.” This marks the date that Earth’s environmental resource flow begins operating on an “environmental overdraft.”
In 2006, “overshoot day” was 9 October; this means for the last quarter of 2006, humanity was in ecological overshoot, living beyond our environmental means, causing a net depletion of resources, consuming resources beyond the level the Earth’s ecosystems can replace.
Our capitalistic business models do not take into account any long-term effects. The assumption is those things are “infinite.” When you think about the cost of a consumer product, a manufacturer just accounts for that in the price of the product. But no one thinks about the cost of waste and depletion of resources. That’s supposed to be government’s responsibility.
The payment will finally come due. And who will pay? Think about it.
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Behind the byline
Jim Pinto is an industry analyst and founder of Action Instruments. You can e-mail him at jim@jimpinto.com or view his writings at www.JimPinto.com. Read the Table of Contents of his book, Pinto’s Points at www.jimpinto.com/writings/points.html.
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