Posted on 03/30/2005 10:29:22 AM PST by jmaroneps37
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.
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "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."
Flow from rivers has been reduced dramatically. For parts of the year, the Yellow River in China, the Nile in Africa and the Colorado in North America dry up before they reach the ocean. An estimated 90% of the total weight of the ocean's large predators - tuna, swordfish and sharks - has disappeared in recent years. An estimated 12% of bird species, 25% of mammals and more than 30% of all amphibians are threatened with extinction within the next century. Some of them are threatened by invaders.
The Baltic Sea is now home to 100 creatures from other parts of the world, a third of them native to the Great Lakes of America. Conversely, a third of the 170 alien species in the Great Lakes are originally from the Baltic.
Invaders can make dramatic changes: the arrival of the American comb jellyfish in the Black Sea led to the destruction of 26 commercially important stocks of fish. Global warming and climate change, could make it increasingly difficult for surviving species to adapt.
A growing proportion of the world lives in cities, exploiting advanced technology. But nature, the scientists warn, is not something to be enjoyed at the weekend. Conservation of natural spaces is not just a luxury.
"These are dangerous illusions that ignore the vast benefits of nature to the lives of 6 billion people on the planet. We may have distanced ourselves from nature, but we rely completely on the services it delivers."
Their populations are still growing, though, and the Chinese and Indian populations, for example, are already at a billion each. I hope they don't get to the same point we are at, wanting two cars in every garage. That could definitely drive up the cost of gasoline.
You're right! The MSM loves them always pitching a "crisis," and without them skreeching and their phony pseudo scientists vying to get government study grants... nobody would need them. Technology is making them and the theme of this panic piece obsolete!!!
In Malthus' time the population of Britain was about 11 million, which he considered the country was just barely able to feed. He wrote that the idea that the nation could feed double this number, or 22 million, was "probably a greater increase than could with reason be expected". To support double this again, or 44 million, would be "impossible to suppose", and that this impossibility "must be evident to those who have the slightest acquantance with agricultural subjects". Britain today has a population of 58 million, who do not appear to be starving.
Their prime resource will NEVER run out... Pure Unadulterated Bull Scat!!!
They can go back to living in mud huts and riding donkeys.....that'll leave more for the rest of us.
The USA is supposed to be nonexistant by 2007, and the Incan calendar runs out in 2025 anyway.
Krakatoa (Daughter of Krakatoa, to be exact) is gonna explode soon, and the skies will be as BLOOD, and the skies will rain sulphuric acid.
A SuperTsunami Force wave from an ocean floor Supervolcano will cause a SUPERWASH of the entire WEST COAST of the US.
California, Washington State, and the Baha will be gone.
Yellowstone Caldera is going to pop, destroying everything WEST of CALIFORNIA.
An asteroid will hit somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, sending huge amounts of moisture and steam into the atmosphere, clouding the skies and changing weather dramatically for a hundred years.
Most of the Asian rim will soon be desolate, as earthquakes will continue to pummel them, wiping out all life on the islands and coastal resorts.
Some terrorist group will attempt to assemble and launch a nuclear bomb, but will bungle it and blow their entire counry up. Other terrorists will swear it was the IMPERIAL INVASIONIST FORCES of USA and the KIWI ISLANDS, and start bombing different PACIFIC ATOLLS. However, they also will accidently trip the bombs off before they get them out of the mideast, and the resulting radioactive clouds will wipe out most of the population of RUSSIA and CHINA.
Wars will break out among all nations in a struggle over the only VALUABLE assets, which will be FOOD and WATER.
The OIL RICH COUNTRIES will no longer even exist.
The SON of MAN, the CHRIST, the PROPHET, will have his SECOND COMING.
No one will notice.
Well the Scientific American better watch out with stuff like this that will ruin that communities credibility and quite soon prove they aren't being very prescient!!!
If we are using up water faster than ever before we better melt those polar ice caps soon to replenish what we've used up.
So, if this article is correct, rain will soon be a thing of the past.
What you eat grows from 'recycled waste'. Some parts of you are made up of molecules that were once, someone else.
Scientific American is to Science as Mexican American is to America.
I tell you, things have gone to hell in the world since the Spice Girls broke up.
It's not the warming or the cooling. It's the wind that brings those temperatures from one spot to another that is the culprit.
I have never seen it so windy , so often, where I live.
STOP THE WIND. Before the whole world ends. SOMEONE STOP THE WIND!
Oh..Well,uhhh...never mind....
Yep! Everybody's either down stream, or down wind from somebody. All those down stream from me are drinkin what's already been through my kidneys, that's why I like livin above the fog and smog and below the snow!!!
Oh! And tell 'em ta build more reservoirs which are really nothing but solar powered time machines when you really think about all the mulitple uses we can make of stored flat water, instead of playin and peein in it to benefit the greedy whitewater rafting corporations of America!!!
In actuality, there is MORE than there used to be.
Scientist have found that smal comets (iceballs) pelt the Earth every day, every minute, every second, to the tune of hundreds of tons of water a day.
YES. Invariably. It is proven fact. All water on this planet came from space, somewhere.
Hundreds of tons of water pelt the planet from outer space every day.
I noticed that too. Either they are assuming we are deforesting to build swamps, or they are counting on mosquitos to evolve into ground breeding pests due to the natural selection pressure of deforestation.
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