Lately, plastic bags and bottles are getting a lot of press in North America. It’s as if we believe by eliminating these two substances it will somehow solve our environmental problems. Eliminating any petroleum based products is a good thing and would be an improvement for landfills and marine life, but the reality is plastic isn’t our only vice.
Our paper habit is also killing the planet as we consume some 370 million tons per year. More than 50% of the world’s forest have been destroyed or converted to non-forest use due to our paper dependence. Less than 20% of the world’s remaining forests are believed to be intact. The average American household receives more than 1 tree worth of junk mail per year.
Electronics are another one of our addictions. Greenpeace International estimates globally more than 20-50 million tons of e-waste are generated each year. Discarded electronics now take up as much space in landfills as plastic packaging, with most of the discarded e-waste dumped in developing nations.
Less than 20% of the world’s remaining forests are believed to be intact.
If we think of the millions of tons of aluminum, glass, steel, petroleum, rubber and water consumed each year, each material we over-consume has serious environmental consequences. Then if we add in the diapers, kitty litter, ink cartridges, batteries, sneakers, insecticide containers, garbage bags, toothbrushes, mattresses and all the other items that have little or no reclamation infrastructure, and it soon becomes apparent we simply cannot continue like this.
Global Debt Day
Global Footprint Network reported the world’s first ecological debt day was December 19, 1987. This was the day when our global economy started to operate with an ecological deficiency. New Economics Foundations, a UK-based online think-tank explains, “This marks the date that the planet’s environmental resource flow goes into the red and we begin operating on a non-existent environmental overdraft”.
The Living Planet, a joint report published by WWF and Global Footprint Network concluded our global footprint exceeded the earth's biocapacity by 25% in 2003. Essentially this means the Earth’s regenerative capacity can no longer keep up with demand — people are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn waste back into resources, the report explained.
Living Planet lists the countries with the top ten ecological footprints, per person by country, in the following order: United Arab Emirates, USA, Finland, Canada, Kuwait, Australia, Estonia, Sweden, New Zealand and Norway. Their 2003 Ecological Footprint Rating measures humanity’s demand on the biosphere in terms of the area of biologically productive land and sea required to provide the resources we use and to absorb our waste.
If we think of all the planet resources needed to support the top ten nations current lifestyles, and our seemingly mulish resistance to change, we have to ask ourselves, are we, as a species, willing to literally consume ourselves to extinction?
We hope the answer is no.
Resources
Living Planet Report 2006 published by WWF International Zoological Society of London and Global Footprint Network is a report on the state of the world’s ecosystems. The report is created around two indicators; the Living Planet Index, which reflects the health of the planet’s ecosystems; and the Ecological Footprint, which shows the extent off human demands on these ecosystems. Read the report.
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