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Mankind Is Using Up Global Resources Faster Than Ever
The growing world population and increasing consumption has pushed the world into ‘eco-debt’ a month earlier this year, according to the latest statistics on global resources.
Think tank the New Economics Foundation (NEF) look at how much food, fuel and other resources are consumed by humans every year. They then compare it to how much the world can provide without threatening the ability of important ecosystems like oceans and rainforests to recover.
This year the moment we start eating into nature's capital or ‘Earth Overshoot Day' will fall on 21st August, a full month earlier than last year, when resources were used up by 23rd September.
Andrew Simms, Policy Director at NEF, blamed increased consumption.
He said people in developing countries like China are consuming more meat and demanding cars and other energy-intensive goods. Even with green developments and energy efficiency, rich countries are also consuming more as individuals demand the latest technology, food fad or car.
He explained that the earlier humans use up Earth's resources, the more strain is put on resources, forcing up fuel prices and driving climate change. Ultimately ecosystems like fisheries and even the Earth's climate system will suffer and future generations will experience food shortages and rising global temperatures.
Mr Simms called for a transition to a more sustainable way of living to prevent poverty and starvation in the future.
"The banking crisis taught us the danger of a system that goads us to live beyond our means financially," he said. "A greater danger comes from a consumer culture and economic policy that pushes us to live beyond our means ecologically."
91 Comments so far
Show Allgreat photo............
talk, talk, talk, no action.........
Too Much is Never Enuff... how many Earth's does it take to support Man(un)kind..?
we've only got this ONE............
i wonder as well, how many humans earth would support, just supposing everyone got rid of the 'stuff' and lived respectfully with nature..............
tired to concern ...
www.thezeitgeistmovement.com
well, do something!
"They will have to pry the steering wheel of my lumbering, gas-guzzling SUV from my cold, stiff fingers!" - Typical American
Mr. Simms paints a picture of overreach that requires individual action. Many have taken steps to greatly reduce consumption. Others have been forced by economic circumstance to do so. The political will to change is being strongly resisted by the haves. The effects of economic decline and global warming will force the wealthy power brokers into submission too. The long time frame of change is creating unease. It's a high stakes gamble.
Eating organic will help conserve farm land. And it will help people live more healthy lives.
While I agree that supporting organic farming is urgent, it will all be undermined as farm land transitions to higher paying crops intended to produce bio fuels. We live in the time of peak oil which means that in 20-40 years substitute fuels will be the norm. As more farm land is taken up to grow bio fuel crops becuase of higher returns on the crops, organic farms will disappear, and even mega corporate farming will give way to bio crops for fuel. What this means is world wide starvation will increase, organic too will begin to transition, and whatever land is still left for farming (organic or otherwise) will cause food prices to soar becuase less and less land will be used for food sources.
Obama's energy bill is heavily laiden with targets for bio fuels.
More than bio fuels, it's factory farming and GMO that is making it hard for organic farming to stay.
Absolutely right. The trophic levels show a 90% loss of the sun's energy every step up the scale. Cows eat for ten people.
The collapse will happen quickly. Resources continually get harder to acquire. All the easy to reach resources have been taken. Pollution, soil lose, demand for food, all increase exponentially, until the sources run out, then bam.
Breakfast time: excuse me while I eat my GMO made corn flakes, GMO soy milk, and GMO sugar.
Welcome to the brave new world.
boom...crash boom...crash It seems like a pretty stupid way to regulate populations vis-a-vis available resources but it's the way nature has worked for around half a billion years...at least since the Cambrian Age.
It seems stupid because it's not a rational process in the sense that someone(thing?) decided that this would be a good idea and then implemented it. It just happened...and it worked. Not for the individuals who lost out in the process...no, they suffered asking why. But out of this cruel mechanism some survived and got to get on the merry-go-round for the next generation.
There's no doubt that we're headed for a crash...not because some deity thinks we've messed up...but because that's the way life works.
So while you're here enjoy the ride and do your best to ignore the wall that the collective car is rushing toward.
Overall, the problem is spelled out, too much population and too much consumption. The former I do not believe is the problem. Earth can provide rather well for up to 10 billion people. The problem is the level of consumption being too high in certain populated places on the globe thanks to the yuppie style capitalism giving them a false sense of believing that they can always have their cake and eat it too. This problem is ignored when articles such as these write sentences such as "Even with green developments and energy efficiency, rich countries are also consuming more as individuals demand the latest technology, food fad or car." Does this mean that we should just let it get worse and do nothing so that everyone is to blame? As as been pointed out before, if everyone is at fault, then nobody is at fault.
"Earth can provide rather well for up to 10 billion people"? At whose expense? Why, the other animals, of course. Look what's being done to them NOW, with approximately 7 billion people.
I respectfully disagree. I believe the only reason the earth can support the current 6.5 billion population is due to the unprecedented reliance on non-renewable fossil fuels to help produce the necessary food, clothing, transportation, and housing. Look at how much we've consumed in the last 150 years, and tell me how much longer THAT can be maintained with Peak Oil only 10 or 15 years away.
In fact I can't think of a single environmental problem that isn't being exacerbated by population growth -- both in the "developed" and the "developing" worlds. Can you? To wit: over-fishing of our oceans, exhaustion of non-renewable groundwater and other freshwater supplies, widespread desertification and soil erosion, the loss and dissection of rainforests and other wild habitat, the loss of wetlands, the over-use of pesticides and agricultural chemicals, unprecedented greenhouse gas production, etc.
And that's only a start.
The earth may be able to support 10 billion, for a while, but the environmental consequences will be devastating. As if they aren't already, with "only" 6.5 billion.
Mother Earth would get along with mankind much better if there were only, say, 1 billion of us. Whatever the case, she always gets the last word.
You can't blame all 6.5b or else nobody is to blame. The biggest culprits of the population need to be addressed first. The US population is only 4% of the world's population yet thanks to our economic system purposely tied to oil consumes 25% of the Earth's natural resources. The world's population could be reduced to half a billion and we would still be having this issue.
The war indusrty and ultra-rich are the largest users of oil.
Great point and that is great place to start targeting the biggest culprits. Thank you.
An article in the New York Times today (today!) happens to have an article on population growth in Pakistan vs. their dwindling long-term fresh water supplies:
"The future looks grim. Pakistan’s population is expected to rise to 220 million over the next decade, up from around 170 million today. Yet, eventually, flows of the Indus are expected to decrease as global warming causes the Himalayan glaciers to retreat, while monsoons will get more intense. Terrifyingly, Pakistan only has the capacity to hold a 30-day reserve storage of water as a buffer against drought."
Hmmm. Sounds like a real issue to me for the 50 million additional people who will be added to Pakistan's population in a decade, with no corresponding increase in available resources.
Sorry, but you can't blame EVERYTHING on North Americans, even though we ARE responsibile for a disproportionare share of ecological damage globally.
There's just too many damn people in general on our small, laboring planet, period. Especially, but not only, in North America.
"Sorry, but you can't blame EVERYTHING on North Americans, even though we ARE responsibile for a disproportionare share of ecological damage globally."
You pretty much contradicted yourself right there.
"There's just too many damn people in general on our small, laboring planet, period. Especially, but not only, in North America."
Neo-malthusian bs designed to keep the elites happy.
Why would we conceivably want 10 billion of us? I like people, love working with them, and particularly love kids; but I'd say 350 million, well-educated, fed, housed, and with access to medical help is MORE than sufficient.
Consider a planet graced with humans, rather than teeming with them. Please!
Earth can provide for 10 billion? Ridiculous on its face. Like the statement that vegetarianism will solve the problem... until, that is, when it doesn't anymore, because the population has overgrown even that food supply. As it will, if it lives.
Howzabout 20 billion, 40 billion? 60 billion? I'm thinking a couple of hundred years of exponential growth. Which is only about the same number of years as the USA has been in existence.
When are enough people enough to keep Viable a planet that supports a life worth living? Guess guns and war will finally decide who gets to live... as usual. Along with the other Four Horsemen.
When will cooperation and altruism become widespread among humanity? So a better system of healing and stewarding this sole Earth becomes the norm. Don't bet on anytime soon. But Jared Diamond's book COLLAPSE does render some hopeful stories; one is about South Sea Islanders that did reach a natural balance of population to resources on their small island home (and ancient abortion played a part). And they created a paradise to boot. And we are on Island Earth, as the old '70s Earth Day saying goes, and yes, we could learn quite a bit from many ancient cultures like that island culture. But giant amounts of people need giant technologies to survive. And thrive.
The old days did have its downsides. If everyone over 35 years old instantly disappeared, as well as over half those under 5, we would have some idea of the old mortality rate. And we would lose billions of people off the Earth, so that would certainly lighten the load. That is how balance used to be maintained. Before technology. Do we want that now?
In the book, EATING FOSSIL FUELS, it is indicated that the highly-energy-intensive world food supply-chain, that now keeps billions alive at all, is already at the breaking point in all ways; peak oil, water, pollution, arable land, and so forth. The book makes the case that the Earth can healthily maintain indefinitely perhaps a billion people, maybe two billion. So did scientist James Lovelock of Gaia fame. He thinks now that the Earth has caught a fever to burn off the destructive viral infection of massive numbers of humanity, a fever that will last 100,000 years.
So that when maxpayne blithely posits that Earth can provide rather well for 10 billion, it is Absurd. That is simply an ideological point of view, and not a practical, reality-based one.
Unless perhaps, everyone, but everyone, lived in a mudhole eating mud cookies, and you merely called this 'rather well-off.'
>>FVHorn wrote: Like the statement that vegetarianism will solve the problem... So that when maxpayne blithely posits that Earth can provide rather well for 10 billion, it is Absurd. That is simply an ideological point of view, and not a practical, reality-based one.<<
FVHorn, I took maxpayne's comment about the Earth's ability to provide for 10 billion people as rhetorical - not ideological. The point was there is far too much consumption in certain countries, and by the rich in pretty much all the countries.
You have been citing the book "Eating Fossil Fuels" repeatedly, and here you go on to - to use your word - blithely dismiss vegetarianism without looking at the numbers for yield from organic farming and permaculture. Your main gripe is against overpopulation, and that seems ideological to me. Especially considering that you conveniently omit one of the main recommendations therein: ***to stop eating meat***. I haven't read that book, but I found online several instances of a summary written by the author, Dale Allen Pfeiffer:
***************
"There are some things that we can do to at least alleviate this tragedy. It is suggested that streamlining agriculture to get rid of losses, waste and mismanagement might cut the energy inputs for food production by up to one-half. In place of fossil fuel-based fertilizers, we could utilize livestock manures that are now wasted. It is estimated that livestock manures contain 5 times the amount of fertilizer currently used each year. Perhaps most effective would be to eliminate meat from our diet altogether."
***************
Incidentally, that is also the ***only*** mention of the word "meat" in a 4000+ word statement about "Eating Fossil Fuels". Sounds strange and somewhat dishonest to me. The article (or statement) by Dale Allen Pfeiffer has this to say:
"Approximately three-quarters of the land area in the United States is devoted to agriculture and commercial forestry."
What it leaves out are closely related figures:
***Raising livestock consumes 90 percent of the soy crop in the U.S., 80 percent of its corn and 70 percent of its grain.***
Here's something to consider: From
"The Meat of the Matter - Our Livestock Industry Creates More Greenhouse Gas than Transportation Does"
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?4264
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To understand livestock’s impact on the planet, you have to consider the size of the industry. It is the single largest human-related use of land. Grazing occupies an incredible 26 percent of the ice- and water-free surface of the planet Earth. The area devoted to growing crops to feed those animals amounts to 33 percent of arable land. Meat production is a major factor in deforestation as well, and grazing now occupies 70 percent of previously forested land in the Amazon region. In Brazil, 60 to 70 percent of rainforest destruction is caused by clearing for animal pasture, one reason why livestock accounts for nine percent of human-caused carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Other sources of CO2 include the burning of diesel fuel to operate farm machinery and the fossil fuels used to keep barns warm during the winter.
And food grown for animals could be feeding people. ***Raising livestock consumes 90 percent of the soy crop in the U.S., 80 percent of its corn and 70 percent of its grain.*** David Pimentel, professor of entomology at Cornell, points out that “if all the grain currently fed to livestock in the U.S. was consumed directly by people, the number who could be fed is nearly 800 million.”
Grazing is itself environmentally destructive. The UN reports that 20 percent of the world’s pastures and rangelands have been at least somewhat degraded through overgrazing, soil compaction and erosion.
Methane (a global warming gas 23 times more potent than CO2) comes from many human sources, but livestock account for an incredible 37 percent of that total. Nitrous oxide is also a very powerful global warming gas (296 times more potent than CO2) and by far the biggest source, 64 percent, originates (as does animal-based methane) from manure “off-gassing.” This process of nitrous creation is aggravated by intensive factory farming methods, because manure is a more dangerous emitter when it is concentrated and stored in compacted form. Nitrogen-based fertilizers also emit nitrous oxide. Another byproduct of raising livestock is copious amounts of ammonia, which contributes to acid rain and the acidification of ecosystems.
Unacceptable Risks
The environmental consequences of meat-based diets extend far beyond their impact on climate change. According to the UN report, producing the worldwide meat supply also consumes a large share of natural resources and contributes to a variety of pressing problems. Livestock production consumes eight percent of the world’s water (mainly to irrigate animal feed); causes 55 percent of land erosion and sediment; uses 37 percent of all pesticides; directly or indirectly results in 50 percent of all antibiotic use; and dumps a third of all nitrogen and phosphorous into our fresh water supplies.
A study by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (IFAP), released last April, called the human health and environmental risks associated with the meat industry “unacceptable.” One of their major recommendations was to “implement a new system to deal with farm waste to replace the inflexible and broken system that exists today, to protect Americans from the adverse environmental and human health hazards of improperly handled IFAP waste.”
And livestock are forcing other animals out. With species loss accelerating in a virtual “sixth extinction,” livestock currently account for 20 percent of all the animal biomass on the planet. As they occupy 30 percent of the planet, they also displace that much wildlife habitat. The grazing of livestock is considered a serious threat to 306 of the 825 “eco-regions” identified by the Worldwide Fund for Nature, and to 23 of Conservation International’s 35 global hotspots for biodiversity.
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- The above article is based on a UN FAO report called "Livestock's long shadow: environmental issues and options"
www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM
So, while it's ok to point to overpopulation, let us have some honesty about how resources are used.
Thank you Alcyon. I do believe that up to 10 billion and things can be worked out. Beyond 10 billion, I might be willing to join the overpopulation chorus. What you have described as the real problem is why I said that we could reduce the population to 1 billion and still the blame on population numbers would never go away. Even Walter Malthus admitted that he was wrong to blame population numbers when he saw the results proving his own theories questionable at best.
We humans like thinking of ourselves as the "pinnacle" of evolution, but that's so self-congratulating. EXTREMITY of evolution is far more accurate.
Nevertheless, those "subhuman" animals, which [sic] exist so far below [sic] us (especially in the minds of progressives, humanists and environmentalists), MERIT their assigned (artificial) status as OUR "property," OUR "resources," OUR "food." Oh, but The Environment, OUR environment, must be protected for OUR benefit and future use by MORE of US.
More of same. So, future generations of more of us will suffer food shortages, climate change, etc? Note how the "subhumans" (who have always lived in sustainable ways on this now human-infested planet) are entirely left out of the picture, as if THEY have no natural claim or moral rights to the same resources that sustain ALL earthlings. We humans can't respect them as equals because we have devalued them. Our hatred for them is quite evident. But humans always come first . . .
Human civilization -- which is global -- has arisen so fast compared to the rhythms of the natural world, it can't be measured in geologic time. We're like a subatomic flash, and how do "you" control a subatomic flash? We can't. We're the ones that are out-of-control.
We're pre-using the produce of the next years, hoping we'll survive on that long enough to harvest what we've used...
What a horrible paradox.
We have entered the Long Emergency, which is characterized by the convergence of peak oil, scarcity industrialism, resource wars, financial collapse, extreme weather and its consequences, and the denial, lies, and propaganda of the elites and the media that serve their interests.
No, we have not just entered into it. We are just now noticing it.
Great comments above!
What sticks with me, is how little respect modern man has for the people who live simple non-consuming lives.
Bombing people who live in mud huts, doesn't strike a chord with most consumers and their culture.
We need to see what this article is saying, but all this reference to new this and that among progressives gets old. We represent true traditional values at their best, the values of an egalitarian, caring, and sharing world which started from 1.4 million to 2.4 million years ago in the heart of Africa and continued until at most 12.000 years ago with the rise of hierarchy and parasitic power elites which continues to this day with those power elites still and more blatantly taking more than their share of the pie that all together created and leaving only crumbs for the rest of us.
AD
We need to see what this article is saying, but all this reference to new this and that among progressives gets old. We represent true traditional values at their best, the values of an egalitarian, caring, and sharing world which started from 1.4 million to 2.4 million years ago in the heart of Africa and continued until at most 12.000 years ago with the rise of hierarchy and parasitic power elites which continues to this day with those power elites still and more blatantly taking more than their share of the pie that all together created and leaving only crumbs for the rest of us.
AD
Well stated -
Everything you say is very true. Too bad it wasn't said and acted upon 40 years ago, when we could have done something about it, or better yet 150 years ago when it would have stood a better chance, or best of all at the start of the industrial revolution when it would have left a world undamaged.
We need to use less "stuff" and use more "service".
Get the old stuff repaired - it gives someone a job and uses less resources.
Find creative ways to use services instead of buying. Find creative ways to get places without driving.
We all need to change, NOW, or our grandchildren won't have anything.
Just think of the worms at work in dead Earnest. What will they do when Earnest is gone?
Victory gardens supplied the US with 40% of its produce during WWll. Park that inefficient lawn mower and plant a garden. You will stay fit, eat the best food, reduce fossil fuel consumption significantly, and our reliance on Big Ag and their frankenfoods.
Forget feasabilty, and difficult economic transitions, we are literally snatching food from the hands of starving children around the world and filling our dumpsters with waste. We need to see our extravagant lifestyle not as unsustainable, but disgusting.
Th uber-rich are the real drain on the world's resources, natural and human. War is the biggest drain of all and the uber-rich create the wars.
Nothing new here. It's obvious something has to give when the economies of the "developed, civilized" world are based on continued growth on a finite planet. It is absolutely obvious that humans are not going to change their ways, especially stupid Americans who are more concerned about the newest cell phone to buy and talk on in their new car as they drive home to their new kitchen w/granite counter tops & stainless steel appliances. Speaking of kitchens, I read some stats somewhere that since the 70s kitchens have grown in size ridiculously, and less & less families actually eat together in them, or at all for that matter.
How did our parents survive without these things. It's a miracle I am alive today.
Right you are, Benderzz. Could not have explained it better.
I don't know about that, but it WILL be a miracle if your kids are alive tomorrow.
The author is mistaken about the economic crash, that is the way the economic elite do things, periodic crashes to suck up the excess debt, and then do it again as they collect when asset bubbles go up and down.
Biofuels can be made from plant waste; it is insane to grow crops for fuel.
Renewable energy is not "consumed" like fossil fuels are. The sun keeps giving us all the energy we need, it's just a matter of efficiently using it (solar thermal concentrators, etc).
Unfortunately, renewables do not pass the test when we scrutinize them closely. All the few renewables that are beyond the development stage, including solar, are not scalable...that is, it takes enormous amounts of raw resources (especially plenty of oil) to build parts, manufacture equipment, ship, install, maintain and replace.
The only solution is for all of us in high energy/per capita countries to cut back DRAMATICALLY,on the amount of energy we use daily. That means not just turning off the AC, but not buying new clothes, new appliances, new cars (even electric cars, think of the cost to manufacture enough of those to make even a small dent in the amount of CO2 emitted). No matter. The economic collapse is going to do that for us.
What we need is to scrutinize how we manufacture things and not be guided by this insane retoric to return to the past. It is gone and there is nothing you can do about it. Invention and progress are needed with an eye on sustainablity not foolishly thinking we just need to go back a couple of hundred years and everything will be just fine. It won't, how do I know? It's how we got here isn't it?
blueskykate1 made a perfectly valid point: conservation and cutting down on consumption must top the agenda. That's called "demand side management".
Most people who simply advocate some kind of "supply side management" have either not looked at the potential for renewable energy (that is how much can be generated, realistically) and the resources it takes to build each megawatt of renewable power - whether it's wind, solar or whatever, or they are dishonest and intellectually lazy.
blueskykate1 didn't mention going back "a couple of hundred years", but it may be necessary in certain aspects of our everyday lives. Beyond the essentials of food, clothing and shelter, anything and everything must be evaluated ruthlessly as to its ecological footprint. Even the essentials deserve no exception.
Anyway, as blueskykate1 said,
"No matter. The economic collapse is going to do that for us."
Aint' going to happen. It will have to happen to us. Even then, it will be too late because some things can't be repaired, such as global warming, ocean pollution and the devastation of the rain forests.
What was it they used to say about kissing your ass goodbye? Well, start puckering.
It is bizarre reading this in the Torygraph. The paper is a bastion of climate change denial. I have yet to talk to a Telegraph reader who does not say: "I have doubts about mankind affecting the climate." These doubts arise directly from the Telegraph's enthusiastic spreading of them, via dishonest fanatics like Christopher Booker. Presumably they can read reports like this and just dismiss them as wild ravings by corrupt scientists.
The fact that the author could write, "Ultimately ecosystems like fisheries and even the Earth's climate system will suffer and future generations will experience food shortages and rising global temperatures" as if these things were not actually happening RIGHT NOW is an indication of extreme denial, and so does not seem as bizarre as you might at first think.
The proper phrasing is in the present tense: "Ecosystems like fisheries are failing, the Earth's climate system is rapidly changing, and humans around the world are malnourished and starving as temperatures rise."
It is all happening NOW!
Too true. There will be no future generations.
POP-U-LA-TION
The more children one has in the U.S., the lower one's federal income taxes. It's a way of paying couples to make babies. When excessive, and rising, populations are central to the destruction of the biosphere, such a tax policy is a form of insanity.
We should treat childless couples as ecological heroes, and the Pope (anti-birth-control) as an ecological criminal.
Unfortunately such attitudes don't conform to the growth-at-all-costs mentality of the current macro-economic zombie mindset ...