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Another earth Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=10844http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=10844
ENVIRONMENT:
Earth Will Need Another Earth, says WWF
Sanjay Suri
Earth will need another earth to sustain it by 2050 at the rate resources are failing to match demands on them, says a new report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
The report 'Living Planet 2002' released in London Tuesday, 50 days before the start of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), says humans are running up a huge 'overdraft' on the earth's resources.
Standards of living and human development will start to plummet by 2030 unless humans stop using more natural resources than the planet can replace, says the report by WWF, a global environment network.
LONDON, Jul 9 (IPS) - Earth will need another earth to sustain it by 2050 at the rate resources are failing to match demands on them, says a new report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
The report 'Living Planet 2002' released in London Tuesday, 50 days before the start of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), says humans are running up a huge 'overdraft' on the earth's resources.
Standards of living and human development will start to plummet by 2030 unless humans stop using more natural resources than the planet can replace, says the report by WWF, a global environment network.
The report's author Jonathan Loh said: ?To avoid a dramatic overshoot of earth's biological capacity, we must urgently address some key issues: production systems which provide us with food, materials, energy and water, must be more resource-efficient, particularly in the energy sector, which is responsible for most of the projected ecological overshoot.?
Loh added: ?Consumption patterns must be more equitable to reduce the wide disparity between high and low income countries. Last, but by no means least, earth's productive ecosystems must be conserved, maintained and restored, by establishing networks of protected areas, conserving the biological diversity and productivity of croplands, forests, grasslands and river basins.?
It is people in the western world, particularly Europe and the U.S. who are consuming resources at an unsustainable level, the report says. ?While the footprint of the average African or Asian consumer was less than 1.4 hectares per person in 1999, the average Western European's footprint was about 5.0 hectares, and the average North American's was about 9.6 hectares.?
The report warns that United Nations scenarios assume that the Earth's existing biological capacity will be able to sustain continued population and economic growth by 2050. ?The scenarios do not incorporate feedbacks or constraints on future growth imposed by the Earth's natural ecosystems,? the report says. ?The limited capacity of global ecosystems must prove capable of supporting the additional load.?
?We do not know exactly what the result will be of running this massive overdraft with the earth,? said Loh. ?What is clear though is that it would be better to control our own destiny, rather than leave it up to chance.?
?In The Good Life Tom and Barbara lived on the produce of their own back garden but to maintain our standard of living today each of us would need more than 13 football pitches of productive space,? the report says.
The Living Planet Report 2002 shows that humans are already using 20 per cent more natural resources each year than can be regenerated - and this figure is growing annually.
Projections based on likely scenarios of population growth, economic development and technological change show that by 2050, humans will consume between 180 per cent and 220 per cent of the earth's biological capacity.
The United Nations has projected a population just under nine billion by 2050, the report points out. ?In these scenarios nine billion people would require by 2050 between 1.8 to 2.2 earth-sized planets to sustain their consumption of crops, meat, fish and wood, and to hold carbon dioxide levels constant in the atmosphere,? the report says.
According to the Living Planet Report, the earth has about 11.4 billion hectares of productive land and sea space. That is 1.9 hectares per person for the 6 billion people on the planet. But the global footprint - the actual consumption of natural resources - is 2.3 hectares per person.
The Living Planet Index is a measure of the state of natural ecosystems according to the number of animal species they support. The report looks at the trend from 1970 to 2000 taking several indices. It produces a forest species population index as a measure of trends in population of 282 mammal, bird and reptile species in forest ecosystems.
A freshwater index measures populations of 195 species of birds, mammals and reptiles, amphibians and fish in lakes, rivers and wetland ecosystems. A marine index looks at 217 bird, mammal, reptile and fish species in marine and coastal ecosystems.
?All three declined over the 30-year period,? the report says. The population of terrestrial species fell by 15 per cent, marine populations declined 35 per cent, and freshwater species populations by as much as 54 percent. That is an average decline of 37 per cent between 1970 and 2000.
?Tropical and southern temperate regions are losing biodiversity the fastest,? the report says. The north is more stable, or in slower decline.
?Where once each generation could expect to be financially better off and have a higher standard of living than their parents and grandparents, scientists are now predicting a reversal of fortunes,? the report says. ?For the first time in modern history future generations are likely to be worse off than their parents.? (END)
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