Treading on national sovereignty and procreational choice and affluence-lifestyle and personal vs public good--makes this a tough sell.
Costanza, Solutions. May 2011
his is an entirely new situation for humanity. In the past when we fouled our local environment, we could move to someplace else. As human population has grown, these short-term solutions are no longer viable. Furthermore, the impacts of our presence were not usually felt beyond our immediate surroundings. This is also no longer the case. The global environment has provided an especially accommodating environment over the past 12,000 years for humanity to develop and thrive.4 But the world population is no longer small, spread out, and technologically limited.
Does our planet have boundaries regarding the amount of growth it can absorb? We believe it does and that certain preconditions must be set that acknowledge and respect those boundaries.
At its current pace of consumption humankind will need, by 2030, a second globe to satisfy its voracious appetites and absorb all its waste, the report calculated.
Earth's seven billion denizens -- nine billion by mid-century -- are using more water, cutting down more forests and eating more fish than Nature can replace, it said.
At the same time, we are disgorging more CO2, pollutants and chemical fertilizers than the atmosphere, soil and oceans can soak up without severely disrupting the ecosystems that have made our planet such a comfortable place for homo sapiens to live.
Counting down from January 1, the date when human activity exceeds its budget -- dubbed "Earth Overshoot Day" -- had receded by about three days each year since 2001
This year, researchers estimate that the equivalent of Earth's resource quota will be depleted on September 27.
"That's like spending your annual salary three months before the year is over, and eating into savings year after year," Global Footprint Network President Mathis Wackernagel said in a statement