Humans living far beyond planet's means, warns WWF

[mc_squared]

Humans living far beyond planet's means, warns WWF

 

Last updated at 08:52am on 24th October 2006

 

 

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 today.

It also said in a two-yearly report that 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.

"We are in serious ecological overshoot, consuming resources faster than the Earth can replace them," WWF Director General James Leape said in the WWF's 2006 Living Planet Report.

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 Living Planet Report said.

It said that everyone would have to change lifestyles - cutting use of fossil fuels and improving management of everything from farming to fisheries. "We must all do more," Leape said.

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," it 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.

The WWF report also said that an index tracking 1,300 vetebrate speces - birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals - showed that populations had fallen for most by about 30 per cent 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.

[Black Rose]

Mission statement of the WWF:

 

"Get everybody back into living into caves and get rid of everything modern".

[Ondes Martenot]

this is a very important issue which every human should care about

[Matter-Eater Lad]

Global warming is Bullshit, but this is real and alarming. We are using up our resources. Its scary

[Ondes Martenot]

believe it or not, but global warming isn't bullshit...

 

both issues are equally important and have commons ;)

[Matter-Eater Lad]

believe it or not, but global warming isn't bullshit...

 

both issues are equally important and have commons ;)

 

Of course its happening, but were not causing it, and we cant do anything about the earth's natural processes, no more then can we stop the sun from rising. But as far as over population and using up resources that is a real threat;)

[mc_squared]

Of course its happening' date=' but were not causing it, and we cant do anything about the earth's natural processes, no more then can we stop the sun from rising. [/quote']

 

Sounds like you've been listening to your president a bit too much!!:P

[Ondes Martenot]

Of course its happening' date=' but were not causing it, and we cant do anything about the earth's natural processes, no more then can we stop the sun from rising. But as far as over population and using up resources that is a real threat;)[/quote']

 

we, humans are causing the warming. we, humans are producing the extremely high number of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide or methane and the consequence of all this is the possibility of the global warming...

 

the electrostations, cars that we drive every day, industrial emissions etc.

 

you can not decline the facts

 

 

 

[Black Rose]

FACT: Cows cause more to the enhanced greenhouse effect than humans.

 

So what are ya going to do about it?

 

Shoot all the cows for 'damaging' the ecosystem, get rid of global warming, and freeze at temperatures of around minus 30C?

 

And I love the way your graphs only go back into thousands of years, if you have a graph of temperature changes over a million years, than you will see the earth warming up and cooling down is natural.

[lunar1126]

Of course its happening' date=' but were not causing it, and we cant do anything about the earth's natural processes, no more then can we stop the sun from rising. [/quote']

 

How the hell can you say that? Global climate is changing, and it is changing UNNATURALLY. Human activity has exacerbated the natural processes of climate change to such a degree. that is it already having severe consequences on the lifeways of many groups of people....particularly upon those living in the circumpolar north. If you don't believe me, read this except from the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (http://amap.no/workdocs/index.cfm?action=getfile&dirsub=%2FACIA%2Foverview&filename=ExecSummary%2Epdf&CFID=3475685&CFTOKEN=28238268&sort=default) Significant changes within the last decade alone, such as melting snow ice, later freeze ups, shifts in animal habitation grounds and general weather variability make the reality of a rapid climate change irrefutable. Read the scientific facts. And if you don't believe that, listen to the observations of those whose lives and cultural traditions are being destroyed because of the severe climate shifts. I have lots of information on this, if you are interested in educating yourself.

[Matter-Eater Lad]

Sounds like you've been listening to your president a bit too much!!:P

 

No, just scientist!:lol:

[Black Rose]

How the hell can you say that? Global climate is changing' date=' and it is changing UNNATURALLY. Human activity has exacerbated the natural processes of climate change to such a degree. that is it already having severe consequences on the lifeways of many groups of people....particularly upon those living in the circumpolar north. If you don't believe me, read this except from the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (http://amap.no/workdocs/index.cfm?action=getfile&dirsub=%2FACIA%2Foverview&filename=ExecSummary%2Epdf&CFID=3475685&CFTOKEN=28238268&sort=default) Significant changes within the last decade alone, such as melting snow ice, later freeze ups, shifts in animal habitation grounds and general weather variability make the reality of a rapid climate change irrefutable. Read the scientific facts. And if you don't believe that, listen to the observations of those whose lives and cultural traditions are being destroyed because of the severe climate shifts. I have lots of information on this, if you are interested in educating yourself.[/quote']

 

Do you have prove that the earth doesn't warm up and cool down over tens of thousands of years all by itself?

 

We are coming out of an ice-age (well techinally, we are still in an ice-age), so the earth will be warming up. Read the scientific facts, not what the papers bring up.

[Matter-Eater Lad]

the earth went to a massive and long ice age....if we'd live during that people would have said humans caused it...the truth is it earth's natural process to heat up and cool down. it has cycles.

[Matter-Eater Lad]

Do you have prove that the earth doesn't warm up and cool down over tens of thousands of years all by itself?

 

We are coming out of an ice-age (well techinally, we are still in an ice-age), so the earth will be warming up. Read the scientific facts, not what the papers bring up.

 

Dave, well said.

[Ondes Martenot]

FACT: Cows cause more to the enhanced greenhouse effect than humans.

 

And I love the way your graphs only go back into thousands of years, if you have a graph of temperature changes over a million years, than you will see the earth warming up and cooling down is natural.

 

look at those graphics again, NME boy

 

closer...

 

and analyse the situation from the beginning of the industrial revolution to nowadays... approximately 200 years and not thousands, jeez

 

i'm not arguing that the temperature changing is a natural effect but the humans are "helping" in this issue obviously, in the last 10 years we made some new records like number of hurricanes in 1 year, max. temperature etc.

 

but if you don't care, you can still go and use the energy of which we are running out btw

[Black Rose]

the earth went to a massive and long ice age....if we'd live during that people would have said humans caused it...the truth is it earth's natural process to heat up and cool down. it has cycles.

 

 

And some cool Polish person discovered that.

[Matter-Eater Lad]

I found this article to be interesting

 

http://www.americanpolicy.org/un/thereisnoglobal.htm

 

and this one

 

Eight Reasons to End the Scam

 

Concern over “global warming” is overblown and misdirected. What follows are eight reasons why we should pull the plug on this scam before it destroys billions of dollars of wealth and millions of jobs.

 

1. Most scientists do not believe human activities threaten to disrupt the Earth’s climate. More than 17,000 scientists have signed a petition circulated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine saying, in part, “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” (Go to http://www.oism.org for the complete petition and names of signers.) Surveys of climatologists show similar skepticism.

 

2. Our most reliable sources of temperature data show no global warming trend. Satellite readings of temperatures in the lower troposphere (an area scientists predict would immediately reflect any global warming) show no warming since readings began 23 years ago. These readings are accurate to within 0.01ºC, and are consistent with data from weather balloons. Only land-based temperature stations show a warming trend, and these stations do not cover the entire globe, are often contaminated by heat generated by nearby urban development, and are subject to human error.

 

3. Global climate computer models are too crude to predict future climate changes. All predictions of global warming are based on computer models, not historical data. In order to get their models to produce predictions that are close to their designers’ expectations, modelers resort to “flux adjustments” that can be 25 times larger than the effect of doubling carbon dioxide concentrations, the supposed trigger for global warming. Richard A. Kerr, a writer for Science, says “climate modelers have been ‘cheating’ for so long it’s almost become respectable.”

 

4. The IPCC did not prove that human activities are causing global warming. Alarmists frequently quote the executive summaries of reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations organization, to support their predictions. But here is what the IPCC’s latest report, Climate Change 2001, actually says about predicting the future climate: “The Earth’s atmosphere-ocean dynamics is chaotic: its evolution is sensitive to small perturbations in initial conditions. This sensitivity limits our ability to predict the detailed evolution of weather; inevitable errors and uncertainties in the starting conditions of a weather forecast amplify through the forecast. As well as uncertainty in initial conditions, such predictions are also degraded by errors and uncertainties in our ability to represent accurately the significant climate processes.”

 

5. A modest amount of global warming, should it occur, would be beneficial to the natural world and to human civilization. Temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period (roughly 800 to 1200 AD), which allowed the Vikings to settle presently inhospitable Greenland, were higher than even the worst-case scenario reported by the IPCC. The period from about 5000-3000 BC, known as the “climatic optimum,” was even warmer and marked “a time when mankind began to build its first civilizations,” observe James Plummer and Frances B. Smith in a study for Consumer Alert. “There is good reason to believe that a warmer climate would have a similar effect on the health and welfare of our own far more advanced and adaptable civilization today.”

 

6. Efforts to quickly reduce human greenhouse gas emissions would be costly and would not stop Earth’s climate from changing. Reducing U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to 7 percent below 1990’s levels by the year 2012--the target set by the Kyoto Protocol--would require higher energy taxes and regulations causing the nation to lose 2.4 million jobs and $300 billion in annual economic output. Average household income nationwide would fall by $2,700, and state tax revenues would decline by $93.1 billion due to less taxable earned income and sales, and lower property values. Full implementation of the Kyoto Protocol by all participating nations would reduce global temperature in the year 2100 by a mere 0.14 degrees Celsius.

 

7. Efforts by state governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are even more expensive and threaten to bust state budgets. After raising their spending with reckless abandon during the 1990s, states now face a cumulative projected deficit of more than $90 billion. Incredibly, most states nevertheless persist in backing unnecessary and expensive greenhouse gas reduction programs. New Jersey, for example, collects $358 million a year in utility taxes to fund greenhouse gas reduction programs. Such programs will have no impact on global greenhouse gas emissions. All they do is destroy jobs and waste money.

 

8. The best strategy to pursue is “no regrets.” The alternative to demands for immediate action to “stop global warming” is not to do nothing. The best strategy is to invest in atmospheric research now and in reducing emissions sometime in the future if the science becomes more compelling. In the meantime, investments should be made to reduce emissions only when such investments make economic sense in their own right.

 

This strategy is called “no regrets,” and it is roughly what the Bush administration has been doing. The U.S. spends more on global warming research each year than the entire rest of the world combined, and American businesses are leading the way in demonstrating new technologies for reducing and sequestering greenhouse gas emissions.

 

 

Time for Common Sense

 

The global warming scare has enabled environmental advocacy groups to raise billions of dollars in contributions and government grants. It has given politicians (from Al Gore down) opportunities to pose as prophets of doom and slayers of evil corporations. And it has given bureaucrats at all levels of government, from the United Nations to city councils, powers that threaten our jobs and individual liberty.

 

It is time for common sense to return to the debate over protecting the environment. An excellent first step would be to end the “global warming” scam.

 

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=11548

[lunar1126]

I'll be back to this thread later.....

I don't have time at the moment to debate this. Please, at least, take a look and READ the SCIENTIFIC (since you seem to be caught up in the science of it all) report in the link I posted.

[Matter-Eater Lad]

Global warming fanatics arent true scientist nor do they rely on real science....

[Matter-Eater Lad]

I'll be back to this thread later.....

I don't have time at the moment to debate this. Please, at least, take a look and READ the SCIENTIFIC (since you seem to be caught up in the science of it all) report in the link I posted.

 

Oh im willing to debate using science...science proves my side to be correct

[Black Rose]

look at those graphics again, NME boy

 

closer...

 

and analyse the situation from the beginning of the industrial revolution to nowadays... approximately 200 years and not thousands, jeez

 

i'm not arguing that the temperature changing is a natural effect but the humans are "helping" in this issue obviously, in the last 10 years we made some new records like number of hurricanes in 1 year, max. temperature etc.

 

but if you don't care, you can still go and use the energy of which we are running out btw

 

Experts have agreed that humans have added a bit to the enhanced greenhouse effect, but that amount is ~ 0.2%, Cows added ~ 0.4% though methane release, and the last time I checked, Methane is a hell of a lot worst than CO2, Methane is the Mafia if CO2 is your little kiddie stealing a bar of toffee from the local corner shop. Pitchfork Boy

[Matter-Eater Lad]

Experts have agreed that humans have added a bit to the enhanced greenhouse effect' date=' but that amount is ~ 0.2%, Cows added ~ 0.4% though methane release, and the last time I checked, Methane is a hell of a lot worst than CO2, Methane is the Mafia if CO2 is your little kiddie stealing a bar of toffee from the local corner shop. Pitchfork Boy[/quote']

 

To save the planet we should kill off all the cows...

[Black Rose]

To save the planet we should kill off all the cows...

 

What about those pesky termites?

[Matter-Eater Lad]

What about those pesky termites?

 

What about them?

[Ondes Martenot]

Experts have agreed that humans have added a bit to the enhanced greenhouse effect' date=' but that amount is ~ 0.2%, Cows added ~ 0.4% though methane release, and the last time I checked, Methane is a hell of a lot worst than CO2, Methane is the Mafia if CO2 is your little kiddie stealing a bar of toffee from the local corner shop. Pitchfork Boy[/quote']

 

like Methane wasn't mentioned anywhere...

 

the scientists all over the world starting to agree on the fact of the global warming, even those who disbelieved till now.

 

humans add to global warming, when with their actions they can try to prevent it...this is the point

 

if the world leaders would really care about global warming then Africa would have much more water resources than they do now, and it's even more terrible to imagine how much water Africa will have in 40-50 years