Living Planet Report
Humanity is using resources and emitting waste (particularly carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning) at a rate 52 per cent faster than the Earth can sustain according to WWF’s Living Planet Report 2012.
The report was launched from the International Space Station on the 15th of May by André
Kuipers, a European Space Agency astronaut.
WWF International Director General Jim Leape said with the current trend of consumption, two planets will be needed by 2030 to support not just the human race but every living creature in it as well.
The critical problem facing planet Earth is that humanity’s Ecological Footprint (a mix of population, consumption and resource intensity) or demand has far outpaced biocapacity (supply).
In fact, there has been an alarming 50 per cent overshoot in demand far beyond the Earth’s regenerative capacity.
Our Living Planet Index (and indicator of the state of global biological diversity or abundance of the world’s vertebrates) has decreased by 28 per cent since 1970.
The oceans have taken a heavy battering with fishing increasing five fold since 1950 and fish stocks seriously depleted.
The biennial publication recommends urgent action to avert a grim future, with recommendations including: smarter consumption, the preservation of our natural capital (like ending deforestation to save millions of hectares of forests) and producing better (such as through the use of renewable energy) and shifting towards the production of more sustainable commodities.
More information can be accessed on:
http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/living_planet_report/
