Ack! time to panic - two thirds of worlds resources used up

Ack!!! It's time to panic. Just read on. (Found originally on DrudgeReport.com, from The Guardian Unlimited - of the U.K.)

Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up'

Tim Radford, science editor
Wednesday March 30, 2005
The Guardian

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 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.
"Human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted," it says.
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. It warns that:

Because of human demand for food, fresh water, timber, fibre and fuel, more land has been claimed for agriculture in the last 60 years than in the 18th and 19th centuries combined.

An estimated 24% of the Earth's land surface is now cultivated.

Water withdrawals from lakes and rivers has doubled in the last 40 years. Humans now use between 40% and 50% of all available freshwater running off the land.

At least a quarter of all fish stocks are overharvested. In some areas, the catch is now less than a hundredth of that before industrial fishing.

Since 1980, about 35% of mangroves have been lost, 20% of the world's coral reefs have been destroyed and another 20% badly degraded.

Deforestation and other changes could increase the risks of malaria and cholera, and open the way for new and so far unknown disease to emerge.

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."

... more at linked article

Whew! Reading this article makes me glad that I'm reading it via the web, rather than on paper, since that comes from trees, and we'd be killing them, and doing other harm to make the ink, distribute the papers, etc. Of course, since this is all being done electronically, we're using electricity, which is derived from fossil fuels, or coal or some other method (for some of us, maybe it's from "clean nuclear power").

Lots of issues raised though, much of which is pretty scary if one lets themselves be easily panicked and concerned with such issues.

I remember back in the 1970's going to a county fair and seeing a machine there (back in the early days of computing, when computers filled several rooms and took huge, unefficient air conditioners to cool them) that was an environmental simulator. It was part of a "game", similar to the old "Balance of Power" (by Chris Crawford) type game where every action had a reaction, and in which there was almost never a way to win.

In the environmental simulator you had to try to lower emissions and lower dependency on oil, but in doing so, you might make yourself more dependent on coal, or solar power, which were less efficient or had other side effects. The game was in many ways a pre-cursor for the Sim City series of games.

The point of the game was to drive home that we needed to be aware of our actions and the impacts of them. We needed to think long term about use of resources, and look for new solutions earlier, rather than later.

I'm glad to see these scientists raising the alarms as they are now, even if some of the numbers they may be tossing around could be disputed (I'm actually not that dis-believing of those numbers). We have, especially in the last 200 years (give or take) advanced so far, and so fast, but at great cost to our environment and the resources we have had available.

We need to be looking for longer term solutions, and must be willing to consider solutions like nuclear power, and must improve other sources like solar or wind power, as well as hydro electric power, and more. We need to move faster to make our vehicles more fuel efficient (even though I just recently switched from a small car to an SUV because of the safety and comfort factors involved, and because of cost had to go with an older, less efficient vehicle instead of a new hybrid). We need to make the costs of newer fuel efficient vehicles more affordable so that more of us can upgrade away from older less efficient ones.

We also need to continue to work on improving heating and cooling units for our homes, and perhaps we need to smack down the desire of many of us to move into huge homes that have large open rooms with high ceilings that required clearing large swatches of trees and other foliage so they could be built.

But, we live in a society where we all make choices, normally (as with myself and the new "used" vehicle that is less efficient and more comfortable) where we make decisions that are the best for us, and for the here and now, rather than for the future (as we argue over social security and "fixing" it).

Hopefully this article can remind us all that we really do need to think more about later, and less about now, and hopefully we'll fix the problem before it's too late.

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No prizes for guessing which country has used most of those.
Glad to hear that you at least are trying to play your part. Here in the UK we've had small, fuel effecient cars for almost 30 years, we haven't got the roads or the natural resources to use SUV's that only do about 8 to the gallon, especially with the some of the most expensive fuel in the world.

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Reply #1 By: SpongebobNopants - 3/30/2005 2:19:44 PM
No prizes for guessing which country has used most of those.
Glad to hear that you at least are trying to play your part. Here in the UK we've had small, fuel effecient cars for almost 30 years, we haven't got the roads or the natural resources to use SUV's that only do about 8 to the gallon, especially with the some of the most expensive fuel in the world.

I was talking a bit with a co-worker the other day about this. In a prior job, with a different employer, I got to travel to the U.K. It was fascinating to me to see so many "small cars" on the road, and rarely, if ever, a vehicle that might be considered even "mid-sized" in the States. Even "tractor trailers" were much smaller, and most "box trucks" were just small vehicles.

In the States (or as you folks in the U.K would say, across the pond) we see hordes of trucks, SUVs, huge tractor trailers, large box trucks, full sized vans, etc., all over the roads. I swear I used to see Dodge (Daimler Chrysler) Neons all over the road, but they all seemed to have been replaced with Ford Explorers (SUVs) or worse yet, Ford Expeditions and larger vehicles. The bigger the better.

I applaud you folks for being quicker to try to solve the problem, and being more ready to deal with smaller vehicles and homes and such. Granted, the U.K. has less real estate to go forth and pollute and use up, and you've probably continued to live a less obese and gluttonous life style when compared to us former colonists, but it's still somewhat sad and depressing that we do continue to use up the planet at an alarming rate.

I've lived a reasonably long life, and seen many things along the way, including some old predictions of what this future was supposed to be like. By now, we were supposed to be living like the Jetsons, or perhaps a bit more like life in the Minority Report type movie, or even perhaps the I, Robot movie. Flying cars, vehicles that road up and down, as well as side to side or forward and backward were supposed to be common place. We were gonna be using more Nuclear power, or solar, or wind. In some places we actually are, but at a rate that still leaves us consuming much more quickly than we should.

We (the States) and the world in general must find alternatives to replace fossil fuels, and we must do it in a way that doesn't make us depedent on burning up some other resources that may be just as important in the future.

Tough problems for sure. One I'm feeling more and more will be solved by our children, as my generation and those before prove themselves to be too unwilling to even begin to tackle the issues.

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