Earth cannot sustain us any longer: Study

NEW DELHI: As humankind persists with thoughtless and extravagant consumption of natural resources, the earth is hurtling towards an unprecedented resource crunch. Put differently, we are living way beyond our means, consuming 40% more than what the earth can sustain. And we can't for long.

A report of United Nations Environment Programme, Global Environment Outlook-4, released on Thursday, has warned, that the consumption levels are fast depleting world resources as regeneration has been outpaced by what humans are burning up. The UN report warns that "the earth's climate has entered a state unparalleled in recent prehistory." It has demanded that countries put environment at the heart of their decision-making processes to check untramelled consumption without sufficient remedial measures. The resources needed to sustain present levels of consumption have reached such alarming levels that on a per capita basis we are consuming one third more resources than the world can afford to lose. According to the UN report, humanity's ecological footprint - or the land and marine area required to regenerate what's consumed - stands at 21.9 hectares per person at present while earth's capacity is, on average, only 15.7 hectares per individual. This is clearly an unsustainable situation.



45,000 sq miles of forest lost across the world

NEW DELHI: A report of United Nations Environment Programme, Global Environment Outlook-4, has warned that the consumption levels are fast depleting world resources. According to the report, 45,000 square miles of forest are being lost across the world each year, 60% of the world's major rivers have been dammed or diverted and the fresh fish populations have declined by 50% in the last 20 years. Meanwhile, the biodiversity register of the planet is becoming thinner by the day. Some 30% amphibians, 23% of mammals and 12% of birds are under threat of extinction due to human activity, while one in 10 of the world's large rivers is running dry every year before reaching its natural end - the sea. And yet, there is no stopping energy guzzlers. The ecological overshoot is much higher at present in the developed countries than in poorer ones, but developing countries, such as China and now India, are adding to the crisis as they grow at a clipping rate. An average North American lives off 600% more resources than an average African. It also implies that to live at current lifestyle standards these rich regions are using up resources from poorer countries. The US, which has one of the highest ecological footprints, has increased its energy consumption by 20% over last two decades. The UN report comes 20 years after the Brundtland Report, "Our Commom Future" - the first time ever that UN highlighted environmental issues bluntly and put them on the global agenda. To the skeptic this might sound like doomsday prophesies but the report has been compiled by more than 380 scientists from the world over and peer-reviewed by another 1,000 scientists. The picture is bleak but the report suggests that simple yet critical action can be taken by even the poorer developing countries that face the greatest risks from such rampant ecological destruction.

The UN report has again put climate change as central to many of the environmental problems demanding that rich nations cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 60-80% by 2050 to ensure the World achieves an overall reduction of 50%. The authors have claimed that the global response has been woefully inadequate to the crisis.

Earth cannot sustain us any longer: Study


Global Environment Outlook-4
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