Mensheid plundert planeet Aarde.

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WNF luidt noodklok over toekomst

Uitgegeven: 24 oktober 2006 11:14
Laatst gewijzigd: 24 oktober 2006 11:42

PEKING - Als de wereldbevolking doorgaat met consumeren zoals ze nu doet, zijn in 2050 twee aardbollen nodig om die consumptie bij te houden. Dat meldt het Wereld Natuur Fonds (WNF) dinsdag vanuit de Chinese hoofdstad Peking, waar het zijn Living Planet Rapport presenteert.

Het rapport verschijnt eens in de twee jaar en geeft de 'gezondheidstoestand' van de Aarde weer. Die toestand meet het WNF aan de hand van biodiversiteit en de vraag naar en aanbod van natuurlijke bronnen als bossen, water en fossiele brandstoffen.


Volgens WNF verbruiken we onze natuurlijke hulpbronnen in zo’n hoog tempo, dat de aarde niet in staat is deze op tijd weer aan te vullen.

Voetafdrukken

Uit het rapport blijkt dat vooral inwoners van de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten en de Verenigde Staten met zevenmijlslaarzen door de ecologie struinen. Het WNF berekende dat de 'voetafdrukken', het aantal vierkante meter dat gemiddeld per persoon nodig is om in de dagelijkse behoeften te voorzien, van deze landen 11,9 en 9,6 hectare groot zijn. Per wereldburger is slechts 1,8 hectare beschikbaar.

Europeanen hebben een gemiddelde voetafdruk van vijf hectare nodig voor energie, voeding en andere behoeften. Nederlandse voetafdrukken zijn 4,4 hectare groot. Afghanistan legt het minst beslag op natuurlijke bronnen: die afdruk beslaat slechts 0,1 hectare.

Duurzaamheid

"Het is de hoogste tijd om te kiezen voor duurzaamheid. Op dit moment gebruiken we al een kwart meer aan natuurlijke hulpbronnen dan dat de aarde aankan", aldus Jim Leape, directeur-generaal van WWF International.

"Het goede nieuws is, dat we weten waar we moeten beginnen, en wel bij ons energiegebruik. De manier waarop we energie opwekken en verbruiken neemt bijna de helft in van onze voetafdruk op deze aarde. Met de juiste keuzes op dit vlak zijn snelle verbeteringen te maken. De benodigde technologie is al voor handen."

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Report: Humans stripping away planet's resources

POSTED: 1531 GMT (2331 HKT), October 24, 2006

BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- Humans are stripping nature at an unprecedented rate and will need two planets' worth of natural resources every year by 2050 on current trends, the WWF conservation group said on Tuesday.

Populations of many species, from fish to mammals, had fallen by about a third from 1970 to 2003 largely because of human threats such as pollution, clearing of forests and overfishing, the group also said in a two-yearly report.

"For more than 20 years we have exceeded the earth's ability to support a consumptive lifestyle that is unsustainable and we cannot afford to continue down this path," WWF Director-General James Leape said, launching the WWF's 2006 Living Planet Report.

"If everyone around the world lived as those in America, we would need five planets to support us," Leape, an American, said in Beijing.

People in the United Arab Emirates were placing most stress per capita on the planet ahead of those in the United States, Finland and Canada, the report said.

Australia was also living well beyond its means.

The average Australian used 6.6 "global" hectares to support their developed lifestyle, ranking behind the United States and Canada, but ahead of the United Kingdom, Russia, China and Japan.

"If the rest of the world led the kind of lifestyles we do here in Australia, we would require three-and-a-half planets to provide the resources we use and to absorb the waste," said Greg Bourne, WWF-Australia chief executive officer.

Everyone would have to change lifestyles -- cutting use of fossil fuels and improving management of everything from farming to fisheries.

"As countries work to improve the well-being of their people, they risk bypassing the goal of sustainability," said Leape, speaking in an energy-efficient building at Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University.

"It is inevitable that this disconnect will eventually limit the abilities of poor countries to develop and rich countries to maintain their prosperity," he added.

The report said humans' "ecological footprint" -- the demand people place on the natural world -- was 25 percent greater than the planet's annual ability to provide everything from food to energy and recycle all human waste in 2003.

In the previous report, the 2001 overshoot was 21 percent.

"On current projections humanity, will be using two planets' worth of natural resources by 2050 -- if those resources have not run out by then," the latest report said.

"People are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn waste back into resources."

Rising population
"Humanity's footprint has more than tripled between 1961 and 2003," it said. Consumption has outpaced a surge in the world's population, to 6.5 billion from 3 billion in 1960. U.N. projections show a surge to 9 billion people around 2050.

It said that the footprint from use of fossil fuels, whose heat-trapping emissions are widely blamed for pushing up world temperatures, was the fastest-growing cause of strain.

Leape said China, home to a fifth of the world's population and whose economy is booming, was making the right move in pledging to reduce its energy consumption by 20 percent over the next five years.

"Much will depend on the decisions made by China, India and other rapidly developing countries," he added.

The WWF report also said that an index tracking 1,300 vertebrate species -- birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals -- showed that populations had fallen for most by about 30 percent because of factors including a loss of habitats to farms.

Among species most under pressure included the swordfish and the South African Cape vulture. Those bucking the trend included rising populations of the Javan rhinoceros and the northern hairy-nosed wombat in Australia.

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PRESSURES OF NATURE
Nations with the biggest per capita "ecological footprints"

1. United Arab Emirates
2. United States
3. Finland
4. Canada
5. Kuwait
6. Australia
7. Estonia
8. Sweden
9. New Zealand
10. Norway

Source: WWF

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Op woensdag 25 oktober 2006 15:12 schreef Roellie80 het volgende:
klinkt als "an inconvenient truth" van Al Gore