I was doubting whether this deserved a diary, but given the apparent little attention it has received, I would hate to see it buried at the bottom of the open/world thread.
I just came across this story in the Guardian
I took their headline word-for-word.
I checked BBC and CNN and found it neither on their front pages nor their Science & Nature and Science & Space pages respectively. Maybe because the report will actually be presented Wednesday (still tomorrow for us in NY) in London:
The report, prepared in Washington under the supervision of a board chaired by Robert Watson, the British-born chief scientist at the World Bank and a former scientific adviser to the White House, will be launched today at the Royal Society in London.
This prediction is not exactly made by one or a few ‘tree-huggers’. Neither is it a conspiracy; how would you involve that many individuals from such different cultures:
The human race is living beyond its means. A report backed by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries – some of them world leaders in their fields – today warns that the almost two-thirds of the natural machinery that supports life on Earth is being degraded by human pressure.
The report has a number of very bleak observations:
In 1997, a team of biologists and economists tried to put a value on the “business services” provided by nature – the free pollination of crops, the air conditioning provided by wild plants, the recycling of nutrients by the oceans. They came up with an estimate of $33 trillion, almost twice the global gross national product for that year. But after what today’s report, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, calls “an unprecedented period of spending Earth’s natural bounty” it was time to check the accounts.
“That is what this assessment has done, and it is a sobering statement with much more red than black on the balance sheet,” the scientists warn. “In many cases, it is literally a matter of living on borrowed time. By using up supplies of fresh groundwater faster than they can be recharged, for example, we are depleting assets at the expense of our children.”
Please follow the link and read the article. A very sobering story. When will we wake up? Kyoto-protocol anyone?
Deserved a diary? Oh yes…. I was just researching it. YOU go with it!
You can add to your diary, if you wish, from The Financial Times‘s “World ecosystems in danger, UN warns.”
All I provided was ONE link to an article. Could have gone to open thread.
The story was absolutely fascinating in a scary way; if you found additinal background on this, please post.
Two-thirds used up?
Check this sobering fact out:
IF the planet has a finite amount of biomass
AND the human popular increases substantially every year
THEN at what point will more than half of the planet’s biomass be human beings?
If you dare to do the math it will shock you
Pax
Well, that puts it in a brutal perspective…
There was a great diary at DKos on consumption by mrsbrown who said her possessions owned her. Many suggestions were put forward on living a more simple life.
I was enormously affected by that diary and have started a new life of less consumption. I almost put “non-consumption.”
And check out this story from The Independent:
An authoritative study of the biological relationships vital to maintaining life has found disturbing evidence of man-made degradation
And:
Full and troubling story: http://tinyurl.com/4zz69
It seems at least the British papers are showing some interest in this subject, which should be getting more coverage than it does.
Is what the whole world has become, but let’s not be pointing the finger at everyone else.
The United States, is by far the most wastefull group on the planet, cut and dry. Sadly, we are also somewhat the “trend-setters” that so many want to immulate.
This problem has been scientifically proven for quite a while now, but being the race of denial, no one wants to admit, what WE have done.
Necessity, will be the final judge,jury, and hangman, in the end.
I read an eye opening article about this very thing in Rolling Stone magazine this week.
Cool – it’s online:
The Long Emergency
This article is where I learned what ‘Global Peak Production’ is – the point the world reaches when we are producing all of the oil we can produce on a daily basis, and it all goes downhill from there.
According to this article, the Global Peak Production year is… 2005.
The US Peak Production year was 1970.
This morning (Thai AM) whilst enjoying my breakfast I was pleasantly surprised to see both CNN and BBC cover this story.