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  National Geographic 13 Oct 06
Balance Earth's "Eco Wealth" the Same Way as Finances, Group Says
John Roach

PlanetArk 9 Oct 06
World Hits Annual Sustainable Resource "Overshoot"
Story by Jeremy Lovell

BBC 9 Oct 06
Planet enters 'ecological debt'

Rising consumption of natural resources means that humans began "eating the planet" on 9 October, a study suggests.

The date symbolised the day of the year when people's demands exceeded the Earth's ability to supply resources and absorb the demands placed upon it.

The figures' authors said the world first "ecological debt day" fell on 19 December 1987, but economic growth had seen it fall earlier each year.

The data was produced by a US-based think-tank, Global Footprint Network. The New Economics Foundation (Nef), a UK think-tank that helped compile the report, had published a study that said Britain's "ecological debt day" in 2006 fell on 16 April.

The authors said this year's global ecological debt day meant that it would take the Earth 15 months to regenerate what was consumed this year.

"By living so far beyond our environmental means and running up ecological debts means we make two mistakes," said Andrew Simms, Nef's policy director. "First, we deny millions globally who already lack access to sufficient land, food and clean water the chance to meet their needs. Secondly, we put the planet's life support mechanisms in peril," he added.

'Eco-footprints'

The findings are based on the concept of "ecological footprints", a system of measuring how much land and water a human population needs to produce the resources it consumes and absorb the resulting waste.

Global Footprint Network's executive director, Mathis Wackernagel, said humanity was living off its "ecological credit card" and was "liquidating the planet's natural resources".

"While this can be done for a short while, overshoot ultimately leads to the depletion of resources, such as forests, oceans and agricultural land, upon which our economy depends," Mr Wackernagel said.

Fredrik Erixon, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy (Ecipe), a Brussels-based think tank, said he applauded the authors on their innovative way of focusing attention to the issue of resource depletion.

But he added he found the concept of ecological debt to be "quite ludicrous". "When it comes to using footprints as a way to follow the micro effects of various economic behaviours on the environment, it can be quite good," Mr Erixon said.

"But the way they are collecting and assessing information is wrong. We don't really get any serious information out of this."

He also questioned the use of the term "debt": "A debt is where you have over-savings in one area of the economy, and under-savings in another. "Then you have a transfer of savings from one actor to another in the form of a loan. But who are we indebted to?" Mr Erixon asked.

"Perhaps 'ecological exuberance' is better than ecological debt." He added that history had shown that technological advances had led to more efficient uses of natural resources, and had sustained economic growth.

PlanetArk 9 Oct 06
World Hits Annual Sustainable Resource "Overshoot"
Story by Jeremy Lovell

LONDON - The world went into the ecological red on Monday -- meaning that for the rest of the year mankind will be living beyond its environmental means, scientists said.

Ecological Debt Day or Overshoot Day, measures the point at which the consumption of resources exceeds the ability of the planet to replace them -- and it gets earlier every year.

"The fact that this year, ecological debt day falls on Oct. 9, only three quarters of the way through the year, means that we are living well beyond our environmental means," said the New Economics Foundation (NEF) think-tank.

"This leads ... to a net depletion of the resources. From Oct. 9 until the end of the year, humanity will be in ecological overshoot, building up ever greater ecological debt," it added.

Calculating the rate of resource consumption against the planet's ability to replenish it, the group said humanity first went into ecological debt on Dec. 19, 1987. Eight years later the date had moved forward by nearly a month to Nov. 21, and now in 2006 it has jumped again to Oct. 9 -- showing an accelerating rate of change.

"By living so far beyond our environmental means and running up ecological debts we make two mistakes," said NEF policy director Andrew Simms. "Firstly, we deny millions globally who already lack access to sufficient land, food and clean water the chance to meet their needs. Secondly we put the planet's life support mechanisms in peril," he said.

For instance, if more fish are caught each year than spawn, then less fish will be available the following year, NEF said.

Britain went into ecological overshoot on April 16, barely three months into the year -- suggesting that if everyone in the world consumed at the same rate as Britons then the world would need the resources of three planets to support just this one.

"The only way to balance the budget and end overshoot is to demand less of our planet," NEF said.

Most scientists agree that global temperatures could rise by between two and six degrees Celsius by the end of the century -- most from burning fossil fuels for power and transport -- causing floods and famines and putting millions at risk.

The Kyoto treaty on curbing so-called greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide commits most nations to act. But the United States -- the world's biggest polluter -- refuses to sign up, boom economies like China are exempt, and the major growth sector of aviation is not even mentioned.

As part of its pledge to cut carbon emissions, Britain has promised to raise to 20 percent by 2020 -- from four percent now -- the amount of electricity it gets from renewables.

National Geographic 13 Oct 06
Balance Earth's "Eco Wealth" the Same Way as Finances, Group Says
John Roach

By October 9 humans had already used more of Earth's resources in 2006 than the planet can renew this year, according to an accounting tool that calculates our so-called ecological footprint.

The Ecological Footprint tool measures how much land and water area a population uses to produce the resources it consumes and to absorb its waste.

The tool "allows us to compare human demands on nature with nature's ability to renew resources," said Mathis Wackernagel, co-creator of the tool and executive director of the Global Footprint Network in Oakland, California.

Today humanity's ecological footprint is nearly 30 percent larger than what the planet can regenerate in a given year, the tool reveals. For example, forests are cut down faster than they regrow, fish are taken from the oceans faster than their populations regenerate, and groundwater is sucked up faster than aquifers are replenished.

To better manage our resources, world leaders should balance their ecological footprint the same way that they balance their finances, Wackernagel and colleagues say.

"If you don't look at your bank account statement, how do you know if you are moving toward bankruptcy or success?" Wackernagel said.

Going Bankrupt

Wackernagel and his then professor William Rees at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, created the Ecological Footprint tool in the wake of the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Sustainability—living within the limits of the Earth's resources—was a buzzword at the time, Wackernagel says, but nobody knew what those limits were. "If we don't look at the global limits and act accordingly, sustainable development is futile. It's totally futile," he said.

Erik Assadourian is a researcher with the Washington, D.C.-based Worldwatch Institute who studies global consumption patterns. He says that the concept of an ecological footprint reinforces the message being delivered by rigorous scientific analyses on the effects of overconsumption.

"We are living unsustainably as a species, and that's going to trigger massive problems," he said.

According to Wackernagel, if global consumption patterns grow at even the moderate rates calculated by the UN, humans will use double the Earth's regenerative capacity by 2050.

At that point, the accumulated ecological debt will amount to resources that would take the Earth about 40 years to renew if humans completely stopped using natural resources.

"We believe that's at the upper limit of what's ecologically possible," Wackernagel said.

To help prevent humans from exhausting the planet's resources, Wackernagel and colleagues aim to have ten countries using the footprint tool to manage their ecological wealth as they do their finances by 2015.

"It's in any government's interest to know how much biological capacity they have available and how much they use," Wackernagel said. "Otherwise they are blind to significant risks."

The network lists 22 countries as potential early adopters of the tool, including several European Union nations, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, and Russia. But absent from this list is the United States, one of the largest consumers of natural resources in the world.

According to Ecological Footprint calculations, the average U.S. citizen requires 24 acres (10 hectares) to produce enough food, shelter, energy, and other resources to sustain his or her lifestyle. Worldwide there are only 4.5 acres (1.8 hectares) of biologically productive land available for each person. Put another way, if everyone on Earth lived like U.S. citizens, the planet would need to be at least five times bigger, Wackernagel says.

Smaller Footprint

Assadourian, of the Worldwatch Institute, says that a complete transformation in how we live is required to reach a sustainable balance of resource use.

One way to get there is to consume in a nondestructible fashion—using recyclable products, biodegradable packaging, and renewable sources of energy, for example.

Humans must also come to understand and appreciate their dependence on nature and learn to share nature's resources equitably, Assadourian says. "We are at a moment in history when we make decisions [and] these decisions will affect thousands of years of human civilization," he said.

Wackernagel said that the first step toward leaving a smaller footprint is to ask: "How can I have a better quality of life?" The answer, he says, almost invariably leads toward a lifestyle that is less resource-intensive, from living in cities with short commutes to using clean energy sources like wind and solar power.

"We need to focus on the incentive for technologies that allow us to live in a small footprint with a great quality of life," he said. "Technology can help us use resources more rapidly or focus us more efficiently, and it's up to us which technology to use."
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