[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: [usgp-dx] Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up'

[Paul Etxeberri]

>
>
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1447921,00.html
>Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up'
>Tim Radford, science editor March 30, 2005
>The Guardian
>
>    The human race is living beyond its means. A report backed by 1,360
>scientists from 95 countries - some of them world leaders in their
>fields - today warns that the almost two-thirds of the natural
>machinery that supports life on Earth is being degraded by human
>pressure.
>
>The study contains what its authors call "a stark warning" for the
>entire world. The wetlands, forests, savannahs, estuaries, coastal
>fisheries and other habitats that recycle air, water and nutrients for
>all living creatures are being irretrievably damaged. In effect, one
>species is now a hazard to the other 10 million or so on the planet,
>and to itself.
>
>"Human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of
>Earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future
>generations can no longer be taken for granted," it says.
>
>The report, prepared in Washington under the supervision of a board
>chaired by Robert Watson, the British-born chief scientist at the World
>Bank and a former scientific adviser to the White House, will be
>launched today at the Royal Society in London. It warns that:
>
>· Because of human demand for food, fresh water, timber, fibre and
>fuel, more land has been claimed for agriculture in the last 60 years
>than in the 18th and 19th centuries combined.
>
>· An estimated 24% of the Earth's land surface is now cultivated.
>
>· Water withdrawals from lakes and rivers has doubled in the last 40
>years. Humans now use between 40% and 50% of all available freshwater
>running off the land.
>
>· At least a quarter of all fish stocks are overharvested. In some
>areas, the catch is now less than a hundredth of that before industrial
>fishing.
>
>· Since 1980, about 35% of mangroves have been lost, 20% of the world's
>coral reefs have been destroyed and another 20% badly degraded.
>
>· Deforestation and other changes could increase the risks of malaria
>and cholera, and open the way for new and so far unknown disease to
>emerge.
>
>In 1997, a team of biologists and economists tried to put a value on
>the "business services" provided by nature - the free pollination of
>crops, the air conditioning provided by wild plants, the recycling of
>nutrients by the oceans. They came up with an estimate of $33 trillion,
>almost twice the global gross national product for that year. But after
>what today's report, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, calls "an
>unprecedented period of spending Earth's natural bounty" it was time to
>check the accounts.
>
>"That is what this assessment has done, and it is a sobering statement
>with much more red than black on the balance sheet," the scientists
>warn. "In many cases, it is literally a matter of living on borrowed
>time. By using up supplies of fresh groundwater faster than they can be
>recharged, for example, we are depleting assets at the expense of our
>children."
>
>Flow from rivers has been reduced dramatically. For parts of the year,
>the Yellow River in China, the Nile in Africa and the Colorado in North
>America dry up before they reach the ocean. An estimated 90% of the
>total weight of the ocean's large predators - tuna, swordfish and
>sharks - has disappeared in recent years. An estimated 12% of bird
>species, 25% of mammals and more than 30% of all amphibians are
>threatened with extinction within the next century. Some of them are
>threatened by invaders.
>
>The Baltic Sea is now home to 100 creatures from other parts of the
>world, a third of them native to the Great Lakes of America.
>Conversely, a third of the 170 alien species in the Great Lakes are
>originally from the Baltic.
>
>Invaders can make dramatic changes: the arrival of the American comb
>jellyfish in the Black Sea led to the destruction of 26 commercially
>important stocks of fish. Global warming and climate change, could make
>it increasingly difficult for surviving species to adapt.
>
>A growing proportion of the world lives in cities, exploiting advanced
>technology. But nature, the scientists warn, is not something to be
>enjoyed at the weekend. Conservation of natural spaces is not just a
>luxury.
>
>"These are dangerous illusions that ignore the vast benefits of nature
>to the lives of 6 billion people on the planet. We may have distanced
>ourselves from nature, but we rely completely on the services it
>delivers."
>
>
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand