The Human As Bigfoot

Original Article:

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/ecologically-an-overdrawn-bank-account/?hp

Snippets:

If business continues as usual, the report predicts, “humanity will be using resources and land at the rate of two planets each year by 2030, and just over 2.8 planets each year by 2050.”

Then there’s the water footprint, or human activity that consumes freshwater. The report says that global water use “is now well beyond levels that can be sustained even at current demands,” while forecasts indicate that demand will rise in much of the world. Current estimates indicate that by 2025, 5.5 billion people will live in areas facing moderate to severe water stress.

The report closes with proposed solutions: increasing forest acreage and crop yields (if the latter is possible in a warming world), doubling protected areas, managing urbanization to minimize the impact on resources and making changes in diets. It suggests that governments and the private sector factor in the economic value of the services that an ecosystem provides (pollination, for example) when doing cost-benefit analyses or making investment decisions.

“We need to move to a situation where products include the cost of externalities — such as water, carbon storage and restoring degraded ecosystems — in their price,” the report said.

In a concluding section, the authors turn from government and corporate prescriptions and write, “For individuals, there are many personal choices ahead, including purchasing more goods produced in a sustainable manner, making fewer journeys and eating less meat.”