So ... not too often entering bits in the dia, but today some articles caught my eye.
from the BBC: "Study highlights global decline"
from the Guardian: "Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up'"
from Asia Times Online: "Too much for Mother Earth"
more over
"The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is one of the biggest scientific collaborations ever undertaken.
...
"More than 2,500 pages long, the full study contains few quick-fix solutions, but correspondents say it does provide the best view yet of the problems facing humanity.
"The assessment, which is intended to inform global policy initiatives, says changes in consumption patterns, better education, new technologies and higher prices for exploiting ecosystems could all help slow the damage being done to the planet" (BBC).
More detailed regional reports are to follow up on this four year $21M UN and sci/dev't effort.
The Guardian gives more details of this
"report backed by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries - some of them world leaders in their fields ... [it] warns that the almost two-thirds of the natural machinery that supports life on Earth is being degraded by human pressure.
The study contains what its authors call "a stark warning" for the entire world. The wetlands, forests, savannahs, estuaries, coastal fisheries and other habitats that recycle air, water and nutrients for all living creatures are being irretrievably damaged. In effect, one species is now a hazard to the other 10 million or so on the planet, and to itself."
...
After detailing some of these changes more closely, the aricle has this interesting graph about the value of the ecosystem
"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."
The article goes on to look at the exploitation of water </me points to future potential of water wars> and recommends conservation (somewhat pathetically IMHO).
So...um, what's new you say?
Well outside of it being a major international report there's also this from the Asia Times:
"Even if per capita income in China grows at only 8% per year - lower than the red-hot pace of 9.5% at which it has grown since 1978 - it will still overtake the current per capita US income in just over 25 years, according to the latest analysis by the Earth Policy Institute (EPI).
And if those increased incomes translate into the kind of lifestyle currently enjoyed by most US citizens, Chinese demands will overwhelm what the planet can provide..."
US style capitalism/consumerism is not sustainable.
"China's economic boom is the biggest single factor in the steady rise of commodity prices worldwide over the past years....
...
"Brown, a founder and former director of the Worldwatch Institute who has long warned about limits to the Earth's ability to sustain wealthy lifestyles - at least as they exist in the United States - now argues that, to the extent China's growth is aimed at replicating such lifestyles, its efforts will ultimately prove futile. Chinese consumption of each of the 'five basic commodities - grain, meat, coal, oil and steel - has already overtaken that of the US in all but oil', he writes. 'Now the question is, what if consumption per person of these resources in China one day reaches the current US level?'
...
"If its economy's annual growth rate slows to 8% per year, China would reach the current US income by 2031; if it grows at a mere 6% a year, it would reach current US levels by 2040."
So what would this level of growth and consumption by China mean in real world terms? Well ...
"'Given the limited potential for further raising the productivity of the world's existing cropland, producing an additional 1 billion tonnes of grain for consumption in China would require converting a large part of Brazil's remaining rainforests to grain production,' according to Brown, who notes that if Chinese per capita meat consumption alone were to rise to today's US levels, about 80% of the world's current meat production would be consumed by Chinese.
"Even more daunting are similar estimates for energy production. If by 2031 the Chinese use oil at the same rate as the US does today, it would need 99 million barrels of oil a day, or 20 million barrels per day more than the entire world currently produces. Similarly, if China's coal burning were to reach current US levels of two tonnes per person per year, the country would use nearly 3 billion tonnes annually by 2031. Current annual global production stands at 2.5 billion tonnes. As fossil fuels, more use of oil and natural gas will also mean unprecedented amounts of greenhouse gases - blamed by scientists on climate change and global warming - released into the atmosphere.
"If steel production per person in China were to climb to US levels, it would mean that China's aggregate steel use would double by 2031 to a level equal to the current consumption of the entire Western world. If China were to reach current levels of automobile ownership in the US (three cars for every four people), it alone would have a fleet of 1.1 billion cars by 2031, compared with the current global fleet of nearly 800 million. "The paving of land for roads, highways, and parking lots for such a fleet would approach the area now planted for rice in China," according to Brown.
"Similarly, if China were to ape current US consumption of paper products, which are reliant on forests and recycled paper today, it would need nearly twice the amount of paper produced worldwide last year to satisfy its needs just for 2031. 'The point of this exercise of projections,' writes Brown, 'is not to blame China for consuming so much, but rather to learn what happens when a large segment of humanity moves quickly up the global economic ladder ... Plan A, business as usual, is no longer a viable option. We need to turn quickly to Plan B before the geopolitics of oil, grain and raw-material scarcity lead to economic instability, political conflict, and disruption of the social order on which economic progress depends.'"
So, solutions? I don't know, technology is probably not going to provide us with the answers, but then again who knows.
I recommend the articles to be read fully.