Posted on 03/30/2005 9:26:37 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
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| Millennium Goals, such as the halving of world poverty by 2015, are off target |
The most comprehensive survey ever into the state of the planet concludes that human activities threaten the Earth's ability to sustain future generations.
The report says the way society obtains its resources has caused irreversible changes that are degrading the natural processes that support life on Earth.
This will compromise efforts to address hunger, poverty and improve healthcare.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was drawn up by 1,300 researchers from 95 nations over a period of four years.
| This report is essentially an audit of nature's economy, and the audit shows we've driven most of the accounts into the red |
| Jonathan Lash, World Resources Institute |
It reports that humans have changed most ecosystems beyond recognition in a dramatically short space of time.
The way society has sourced its food, fresh water, timber, fibre and fuel over the past 50 years has seriously degraded the environment, the assessment (MA) concludes.
And the current state of affairs is likely to be a road block to the Millennium Development Goals agreed to by world leaders at the United Nations in 2000, it says.
"Any progress achieved in addressing the goals of poverty and hunger eradication, improved health, and environmental protection is unlikely to be sustained if most of the ecosystem 'services' on which humanity relies continue to be degraded," the report states.
"This report is essentially an audit of nature's economy, and the audit shows we've driven most of the accounts into the red," commented Jonathan Lash, the president of the World Resources Institute.
"If you drive the economy into the red, ultimately there are significant consequences for our capacity to achieve our dreams in terms of poverty reduction and prosperity."
The MA is slightly different to all previous environmental reports in that it defines ecosystems in terms of the "services", or benefits, that people get from them - timber for building; clean air to breathe; fish for food; fibres to make clothes.
| There will undoubtedly be gainsayers, as there are with the IPCC; but I put them in the same box as the flat-Earthers and the people who believe smoking doesn't cause cancer |
| Prof Sir John Lawton |
The study finds the requirements of a burgeoning world population after WW II drove an unsustainable rush for these natural resources.
Although humanity has made considerable gains in the process - economies and food production have continued to grow - the way these successes have been achieved puts at risk global prosperity in the future.
"When we look at the drivers of change affecting ecosystems, we see that, across the board, the drivers are either staying steady or increasing in severity - habitat change, climate change, invasive species, overexploitation of resources; and pollution, such as nitrogen and phosphorus," said Dr William Reid, the director of the MA.
More land was converted to agriculture since 1945 than in the 18th and 19th Centuries combined. More than half of all the synthetic nitrogen fertilisers - first made in 1913 - ever used on the planet were deployed after 1985.
The MA authors say the pressure for resources has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth, with some 10-30% of the mammal, bird and amphibian species currently threatened with extinction.
The report says only four ecosystem services have been enhanced in the last 50 years: increases in crop, livestock and aquaculture production, and increased carbon sequestration for global climate regulation (which has come from new forests planted in the Northern Hemisphere).
Two services - fisheries and fresh water - are said now to be well beyond levels that can sustain current, much less future, demands.
The assessment runs to 2,500 pages and is intended to inform global policy initiatives. In many ways, it mirrors the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which, by bringing together hundreds of scientists in a peer-reviewed process, has driven efforts to slow global warming.
"There will undoubtedly be gainsayers, as there are with the IPCC; but I put them in the same box as the flat-Earthers and the people who believe smoking doesn't cause cancer," said Professor Sir John Lawton, former chief executive of the UK's Natural Environment Research Council.
MA - ASSESSNT OVERVIEW |
| Humans have radically altered ecosystems in just 50 years |
| Changes have brought gains but at high ecosystem cost |
| Further unsustainable practices will threaten development goals |
| Workable solutions will require significant changes in policy |
"The MA is a very powerful consensus about the unsustainable trajectory that most of the world's ecosystems are now on."
The report is not all doom and gloom. Modelling of future scenarios suggests human societies can ease the strains being put on nature, while continuing to use them to raise living standards.
But it requires, says the MA, changes in consumption patterns, better education, new technologies and higher prices for exploiting ecosystems.
Some of the solutions go to old but as yet unfulfilled initiatives, such as the abolition of production subsidies which imbalance world trade and in agriculture are blamed for overloading land with fertilisers and pesticides as farmers chase high yields.
Newer solutions centre on putting a value on "externalities" that are currently deemed to be "free" - airlines do not pay for the carbon dioxide they put into the atmosphere; and the price of food does not reflect the cost of cleaning waterways that have been polluted by run-off of agrochemicals from the land.
PLANET UNDER PRESSURE |
| 60% of world ecosystem services have been degraded |
| Of 24 evaluated ecosystems, 15 are being damaged |
| About 20% of corals were lost in just 20 years; 20% degraded |
| Nutrient pollution has led to eutrophication of waters and coastal dead zones |
| Species extinction is now 100-1,000 times above the normal background rate |
| In future, these areas could be constrained by markets that trade permits - as in Europe's newly established carbon emissions market. |
Technology's role, the MA says, will be keenly felt in the field of renewable energies.
But the pace of change needs to quicken, the report warns. Angela Cropper, the co-chair of the MA assessment panel, added: "The range of current responses are not commensurate with the nature, the extent or the urgency of the situation that is at hand.
"In our scenarios, we see that with interventions that are strategic, targeted, and more fundamental in nature - we can realise some of the desired outcomes and they can have positive results for ecosystems, their services and human well-being."
The MA has cost some $20m to put together. It was funded by the Global Environment Facility, the United Nations Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the World Bank and others.
Yep.
....AND LONG TERM BREATHING LEADS TO EVENTUAL DEATH!!!
They must be slipping a little it took quite a while for them to get around to calling for economic sacrifice,aka takes,or the equivalent.Gee I wonder what country they think should pay the most.
Hogwash.
These studies never compare a control sample of what the earth would be like if humans never existed. Further, the history of the planet has one sure consistency, the climate is always changing, even before we evil humans existed. It is proven that humans contribute only a fraction of the polutants that are claimed to have an adverse affect of greenhouse gasses (that is unless you consider our exhaled breath). Volcanoes firing millions of tons of acidic gasses into our atmosphere are some of the largest contributors. Finally, we (humans) are part of the earth and its evolution. We exist, therefore we are. In time, the earth will be rid of our race and another will come after us. Humans however have the unique ability to ADAPT to our environmnet.
Anyway, this article is good because it proves that we can quit worrying about it because we can't do anything about it anyway.
Someday
We are all going to die.
Film at 11.
The enviros have put out so many doom and woe pieces that they have lost whatever credibility they might have had. Its sad, really.
Beat me by 5 seconds.
5 lovely seconds
It's hard to imagine that there are that many idiot savants in the world. Let me rephrase that: ... that many fools educated way beyond their intelligence. The bright spot in this story is that the number represents only 0.000022% of humanity, an encouragingly small number.
The desertification of the Sahara began eons before puny humans could have any effect on the process; the ice ages have come and gone, oblivious to all but their natural rhythms. The oceans overwhelm human wish or criticisms.
The most obscene quality of this constant handwringing is that the inevitable conclusion is that humanity will have to cull itself sooner or later, but these same geniuses do everything possible, constantly to frustrate the limitless mind of man to prepare and compensate for the growth of the planet; in every way imagineable.
Another unspoken statement is who shall do the culling? the choosing in that dim distant future where somebody's got to go, for the benefit of all. Random lot? Kill the productive first? The imaginative? The leaders? The loudest? The meekest?
I will be the lone voice here.
I agree that natural resouces are being used up way too fast. A very good friend has a fleet of fishing vessels in Alaska and his catches are way down due to overharvesting. He said the fish are not dying they are just being eaten faster than they can reproduce. He would like to see a limit put on fishing for some years to let the fish reproduce back up into larger numbers. BTW this guy is a very strong republican and is not an envirinmental lib.
If natural resources are limitless and not a worry why is china making sweetheart deals with every country in the world making them first in line and in effect booting the US to the back of the line???
I think some resouces are o.k. like petro, and lumber which can be regrown.
You all look at the US which replants it's cut down trees because we are thinking ahead. However the 3rd world countries are not replanting-just using up.
I also know a guy who goes to brazil every 4-5 years to fish. He said all you see is fires everywhere because people are burning back the rain forest. I don't have a problem with this but they are not replanting any trees like we do in the US and are not addressing the problems they are causing. He fishes in tributaries on the amazon. He said the water is the consistency of mud in many areas and all the fish are dying. The water is muddy from all the erosion etc. Again I don't have a problem with development but these people need to control erosion like we do in the US.
What I'm trying to say is if you have development you need to have counter measures to make up for the areas developed. These 3rd worlders don't care about tomorrow though or are not smart enough to realize what they are doing.
For more twaddle along this line, there's a good `The Sky Is Falling' article in this months Rolling Stone. I don't subscribe, they just send it. (Can't give it away?)
In RS's letters to the Editor, readers wax and wane over the psychotic, drug-addled suicide, Hunter Thompson, with liberal profanity. And there's a garbage article--also sprinkled with filth--on the Jackson trial that illustrates the disdain held by those cool-cats/hipsters for the American public.
All I can say is, Viva Free Republic.
Lunch over, back on the treadmill.
Fire that stupid accountant. He is inept, ignorant and hasn't a clue.
Even if he means well.
If we can only shut down "foundation" which give him the research grants. That means that we have to go after limousine liberals.:)
Are nations sovereign? or not?
Careful here.
Would you want the U.N. making "final judgements"?
If they really cared, they'd have killed themselves to save the planet.
Quote: You neglected to acknowlege two things: How is the Amazon thing any busines of ours (the U.S.)? How are we to blame for that?
I agree 100%, It is non of our business and we are not to blame.
The point I'm making is the 3rd world countries are using and not replenishing anything and have no safeguards in place to stabilize the side effects of development such as erosion . We look at what is happening in the US(tree replanting, reclaiming dtrip mined land etc) and most don't realize the rest of the world does not operate in the same way. 3rd world countries have turds floating down their streams and then bath/drink in the water.
I had some of my land timbered 10 years ago. I made sure the logging companies did their best not to runover the smaller trees and planted trees to make up for the ones cut down. I plan on harvesting the trees that are ready again in 15-20 years (part of my retirement). In most 3rd world countries the trees they did not use for logs would have been cut for firewood.
I'm gonna party like it's 1999.
um...
2099.
2199?
This will be used to halt US drilling for oil in Alaska.
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