| Subject: It's pretty clear, the author has never flown coast to coast |
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Curmudgeon
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Date Posted: 11:57:36 11/09/06 Thu
In reply to:
DE
's message, "Still winning, Eco Freaks own people say so..." on 05:16:15 11/09/06 Thu
on a clear day. He have just miles and miles of little else but miles and miles.
>The UK needs 3 planets to support it
>Tuesday 24 October 2006
>The world's natural ecosystems are being degraded at a
>rate unprecedented in human history.
>WWF's Living Planet Report 2006, the group's biennial
>statement on the state of the natural world, shows
>that we are currently using the planet's resources far
>faster than they can be renewed. On current
>projections, this means that as a whole, humanity will
>need at least two planets' worth of natural resources
>by 2050.
>
>In the UK alone, we are currently living a 'three
>planet lifestyle' and the report indicates that the
>world's Ecological footprint - the demand people place
>upon the natural world - has more than tripled since
>1961 and that rising carbon dioxide emissions are the
>biggest cause of our ecological impact on the planet.
>
>The UK has also risen from 15th to 14th place in the
>world's ecological footprint league table with an
>increased footprint of 4 per cent to 5.6 global
>hectares per capita since 2004. This means that each
>person in the UK uses the equivalent of 6 football
>pitches worth of natural resources to support their
>lifestyles.
>
>Paul King, WWF Director of Campaigns said: "We
>urgently have to face the fact that we are all running
>up a serious ecological debt and that we cannot
>continue to exhaust the Earth's natural reserves
>without putting something back.
>
>"It is time to make some vital choices, to enable
>people to enjoy a one planet lifestyle. The cities,
>power plants and homes we build today will either lock
>society into damaging over-consumption beyond our
>lifetimes, or begin to propel this and future
>generations towards sustainable, One Planet Living.
>
>"WWF and our partners BioRegional have developed a
>framework for One Planet Living ® based on ten guiding
>principles that are accessible and easy for anyone to
>understand. The good news is that the language of One
>Planet Living is being rapidly and widely taken up by
>people including David Miliband, Secretary of State
>for the Environment. However a commitment to One
>Planet Living must include a commitment by the UK
>government to adopt Ecological Footprint as a
>sustainable development indicator and set targets for
>year on year reduction. Otherwise One Planet Living is
>at risk of becoming just another over-used sound bite,
>with no teeth".
>
>Humanity's over consumption has been increasing year
>on year since WWF and partners started to collate this
>report, with demand exceeding supply by about 25 per
>cent in 2003. This means that it took approximately a
>year and three months for the Earth to produce the
>ecological resources we used in that year.
>
>The report has shown that between 1970 and 2003
>terrestrial species have declined by 31 per cent,
>freshwater species by 28 per cent, and marine species
>by 27 per cent. The Living Planet Report 2006, pulls
>together various data to compile two indicators of the
>Earth's well-being.
>
>The first, the Living Planet Index, measures
>biodiversity, based on trends in more than 3600
>populations of 1300 vertebrate species around the
>world. In all, data for 695 terrestrial, 344
>freshwater and 274 marine species were analyzed.
>
>"Jonathan Loh (Zoological Society of London), one of
>the editors of the report, said "The Living Planet
>Index is a stark indication of the rapid and ongoing
>loss of biodiversity worldwide. Populations of species
>in terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems have
>declined by more than 30 per cent since 1970, a rate
>that is unprecedented in human history. In the tropics
>the declines are even more dramatic, as natural
>resources are being intensively exploited for human
>use."
>
>The second index, the Ecological Footprint, measures
>humanity's demand on the biosphere. Significantly the
>carbon dioxide footprint, from the use of fossil
>fuels, was the fastest growing component of our global
>footprint, increasing more than nine fold from 1961 to
>2003.
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