Wasting+Resources

Lilian Durand and Natalie Daniel



(Bingham Copper Mine in Oquirrh Mtns, southwest of Salt Lake City UT. This porphyry mass intrudes Pennsylvanian sediments; the ore contains about 1 per cent copper. Photo was taken in 1966)

[] **Wasting Away: Natural Resources and the Environment** We are totally dependent on natural resources. Everything we have or use is made of natural resources, or raw materials and energy obtained from the environment. The clothes you're wearing, the chair you're sitting on, your house and TV and school and books, the school bus, city streets, whatever you ate for breakfast, and the package your breakfast came in are made of natural resources. Natural resources sustain human life. Non-renewable resources include oil and gas, soil and water, and minerals like iron and aluminum. They are found in strictly limited quantities on our planet and are not replenished by natural processes (except in geological time frames of millions of years). Renewable natural resources include things like trees, which can be replenished or will grow again. However, even these are available in finite quantities. Trees, for example, can only grow so fast. Sunlight and wind are the only natural resources available in essentially limitless amounts. And, although it's not the kind of "event" that makes front-page news, many scientists think that depletion of natural resources is one of the biggest problems our society will face in the twenty-first century. Our use of natural resources affects the environment in many ways. Our use of natural resources has impacts that go far beyond simply using materials that are in limited supply. The environment is affected at every stage of the chain of extraction-processing-manufacturing-marketing-consumption-disposal. The harvesting of raw natural resources directly impacts the environment through mining, timber cutting, construction of dams, and the like. Then the raw materials must be made into a usable form, such as metallic ores into more pure metals. This is an energy-intensive process that typically results in air and water pollution as well as unwanted or even toxic by-products. Next, to produce specific consumer products like clothes, camcorders, or skateboards, further manufacturing processes are needed. These manufacturing processes also use energy and often generate pollution. Then the final consumer products need to be transported and stored, which again involves additional inputs of energy and materials and has further environmental impacts. Finally, the products must be packaged and marketed to us, the public. This involves still more natural resource use and more environmental impacts related to packaging materials, billboards, print ads, and so on. Packaging and advertising contribute significantly to the cost of a product and to its overall environmental impact as well. In the United States, discarded packaging materials alone account for about 35% of household trash. Print advertising in catalogues, fliers, magazines, and newspapers also contributes significantly to household trash. When we actually purchase an end product, is the chain of impact finally complete? Not yet! If using the product we have bought requires gasoline, batteries, or electricity, the production and use of these generates more pollution. At some point, whatever the item - be it a few ounces of packaging that holds a fast-food meal for two minutes, or a two-ton automobile that lasts for years - we throw it away. But really, there is no "away." Something must be done with the stuff we no longer want. That can cause problems. A lot of our trash is just plain dangerous. Even common household products like paint, batteries, and cleaning supplies are often toxic. Also, the sheer volume of trash we produce is a problem in itself. In some parts of the U.S., trash is incinerated or burned. Incineration produces air pollution, and the ash left behind is toxic. In other areas, trash is buried in landfills. That has problems, too. Landfills require huge tracts of land. Pollution problems often develop around older landfills. Newer landfills are built to stricter health and environmental standards. However, both landfills and incinerator ash must be carefully monitored for hundreds of years into the future. How much is enough? Of course, some products we buy are necessary to our health and well-being, or improve the quality of our lives. We need clothes and stoves and so on. And who would want to give up books and music and other things the enrich our lives? The question of concern is, at what level of consumption are we using up our natural resources and our environment for things that we don't need and that don't really enhance our lives? The developed countries of the world hold 25% of the world's population, but consume 75% of all energy, 85% of all wood products, and 72% of all steel produced. Americans consume the most of all, even more than people in other developed countries. For example, we consume about twice as much energy per person as the British, French, Swedes, Norwegians, or Japanese. Our consumption of other resources is also high. In Fact, from 1940 to 1976, Americans consumed more minerals than did all of humanity up to then. And our consumption rate for most resources is still rising. Commercialism impacts the environment. Our consumption rate reflects the level of commercialism in our culture. Over the last few decades, advertising has gradually helped convince us to make changes in our lives. Ads surround us. They encourage us to want more and buy more, often regardless of our true needs. Commercialism stimulates artificial wants, and satisfying these wants means consuming more material goods and thus increases resource consumption and environmental impacts. Ads suggest that we should want things that are newer, faster, fancier, more fashionable, a different color, larger or smaller, just like what everyone else has or different from what everyone else has. This //perceived// //obsolescence// is used to stimulate us to buy more. The classic example of perceived obsolescence is fashions in clothing. The same approach is used when makers of computers, stereos, cars, an other products tempt us with new products even though the older versions serve our needs well. A related approach, //planned obsolescence// is used by makers of other products. For example, some toys, equipment, calculators, small appliances, and other items are built to last only a short while. When broken, these items are not able to be repaired but must be replaced. Finally, purveyors of fast food and prepared foods tell us that life will be easier and more fun if we eat their highly processed and packaged foods. A healthy environment and a supply of natural resources are basic to our well-being. The basic premise of almost all ads is that we will be happier if we have //this//, too. Companies with products for sale would like us to believe that, since their profits increase when we buy their products. Yet our well being and happiness are not necessarily dependent on having more and more material goods. Our long-term health, happiness, and well-being //are// dependent on a healthy environment, as well as on our relationships with family and friends. Does commercialism foster a culture of waste - a culture in which we are encouraged to make choices that are fundamentally at odds with our need to conserve natural resources and care for the environment? It seems that the typical American lifestyle involves always wanting more. When we live in highly consumptive lifestyle, we use more resources and create more pollution. Many environmental problems are tied to our rate of consumption of material goods and thus of natural resources. The most basic method of caring for our environment is to conserve natural resources and use them wisely.

In the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, August 08, 2007 ** Running Out of Resources? **** By Pete Geddes ** I’m often asked about our consumption of natural resources, e.g., oil, iron, and copper. Since these resources are finite and population continues to grow, aren’t we in danger of running out? My short answer is no, we’ll never run out of anything that trades in the marketplace. But, we should be concerned about running out of “resources” that have no price and no owner, e.g., wild things and the ecosystems upon which they depend. Here’s why I’m concerned about the one and not the other. Geologists define resources as the total physical stock of any material e.g., coal. In contrast, reserves are the portion of those resources that can be economically developed. Technological advances allow us to constantly move commodities from the resource category into the reserve pool. Prices also expand our reserves, as yesterday’s high cost resources become today’s lower cost ones (e.g., Canada’s tar sands). Rising prices signal scarcity, and this creates incentives that spur conservation and the search for substitutes (e.g., silicon fiber-optic lines replaced copper phone wires to great environmental benefit). The 20th Century is littered with predictions of the world’s imminent collapse from overpopulation, pollution, and resource shortage. A federal judge at a recent FREE conference noted, “When we see nothing but progress behind us, why should we see only destruction in front?” When institutions foster innovation and property rights are secure, scarcity never wins against creativity. Ecologist Garret Hardin wrote his classic, “The Tragedy of the Commons” in 1968. The logic of this article is straightforward. When no one has control over a resource, be it a parcel of ocean or a dormitory lounge, it tends to be poorly maintained, overused, or depleted. This explains why prized resources, such as ocean fisheries, available to all, will be over exploited. Without social or legal constraints, the incentive is for people to seek narrow personal advantages at the expense of the group and the resource. Few people act as wise stewards because others take a “free ride” on such actions, and rarely reciprocate. Some common-pool resource problems, like climate change, present a great challenge. Since it is impossible to limit access to the atmosphere, a regulatory approach may be justified. For example, a carbon-tax to reduce CO2 emissions. Other open access resource problems, ocean fisheries for example, can be solved by assigning property rights to fishermen in the form of tradable quotas. It’s a challenge to extend property rights to wildlife and their ecosystems. The traditional approach has been to create protected areas and limit human use (usually with a uniform and badge). But this frequently fails, especially in developing countries where poverty drives people to exploit the natural world and there are no institutions to foster conservation. A key to success is to structure institutions such that local people have incentives for conservation. Over a decade ago, a group of conservationists gathered to discuss an approach that was sensitive to the aspirations of local people. They collected their thoughts in an attractive booklet, “The View from Airlie.” Conservation success often depends on the active involvement, rather than the exclusion, of local communities. They observed: "The chief strategy of conservationists for more than a century has been exclusionary and implicitly misanthropic.... establish protected areas...and then safeguarding these areas by carefully limiting human use.... The protected-area approach...has often robbed rural communities of their traditional user-rights over forests, waters, fisheries, and wildlife, without offering appropriate remuneration to try and save the planet.”  Here’s the nugget: “Blockading rural people against the use of their own landscape without offering them viable alternatives will always, to the blockaded, seem perverse and intolerable. And will always, consequently be futile.”    Successful conservation groups understand this. For example, the Bozeman based Tributary Fund works with local communities in Mongolia to protect the Eg-Uur watershed, home of the world’s largest (and endangered) salmon, the taimen. The Tributary Fund generates incentives for environmental stewardship by employing local families in their operations, e.g., as fishing guides. We should not be worried about running out of resources that fuel our economy. And fortunately, entrepreneurs like those at the Tributary Fund give us hope that we can overcome the other kind of resource scarcity as well. []

** Ten Steps to Conserve Resources **  ** Mary Robson (Ret.) **** Area Extension Agent  Regional Garden Column Aug 31, 2003 ** What a summer! Although this year has been exceptionally warm and dry, the trend toward hotter summers and warmer winters is real. It’s nice to have geraniums and other tender perennials live over from year to year and to have ripe tomatoes earlier in July. Nevertheless, I find global climate change alarming. While we may benefit a bit, other parts of the world are experiencing serious problems with droughts and floods. Some experts point out that we are still coming out of the last ice age, which from a geologist’s perspective was just yesterday. While that certainly may be a contributing factor, so is the greenhouse effect caused by our energy use. We can’t do anything about the ice age cycle, but we can and must do something about the greenhouse crisis. It seems presumptuous to think that we as individuals can affect global climate change. However, if enough of us do our part, even in small ways, we can have an impact. The people of the United States (about 2% of the world's population) account for about 24% of the world's emissions of greenhouse gases. We can’t go back to a pre-industrial-revolution. What we can do is commit ourselves to action, to making small changes, as we are able. Cumulatively, it will make a difference. As gardeners, most of us already think of ourselves as Earth stewards to some extent. It’s not much of a stretch to extend our caring into our lifestyle choices. We need to look for whatever changes we can make to reduce our energy usage, to slow consumerism, to protect and restore our environment and to get involved politically to care for the Earth. ** Here are 10 steps you should consider. ** Don’t feel guilty, if you can’t do them all. Just try to do one more thing than you are presently doing and then one more after that. 1. ** Insulate your home. ** Caulk and weatherstrip. Plant deciduous shade trees on the south and west sides of your home to block the sun in summer and allow it to warm your house in winter. Dress warmly and turn down the heat in winter. 2. **Make fuel efficiency a high priority when buying a car. ** Join a carpool or use the bus. Walk or ride a bicycle when possible. 3. **Grow your own food and/or buy locally produced food. ** Eat organic and fewer processed foods. Go vegetarian at least once a week. Meat makes less efficient use of land, water and energy and cows emit methane. 4. **Recycle. ** Separate wastes. Compost yard and food wastes. Use recycled products, especially paper. 5. ** Reduce or eliminate your use of “disposable” products. ** Buy quality and then make things last with regular maintenance. Rent or borrow items that you don’t use often. 6. ** Re-use envelopes, jars and scrap paper. ** Take your own bags to the grocery store. Check out garage sales and thrift stores for a chance to re-use someone else’s throw-aways. 7. ** Pave as little as possible. ** Use gravel or other porous surface for driveways and garden paths. Collect rainwater and graywater for gardening use. Water with a drip system or soaker hoses. 8. ** Get involved in community tree planting **, in protecting local watershed areas and/or donate money to environmental organizations. 9. ** Support electoral candidates, who have a responsible environmental platform. ** Let those in office know of your concerns and consider running for office yourself. 10. **Spend more time in your garden and in natural areas. ** Rejoice in the beauty of the Earth. Pass on your environmental ethic to children. Remember that your landscape is important to the environment. Although water conservation is important, don’t use it as an excuse not to irrigate. Established woody plants can frequently get by without summer irrigation, but not in a summer like this. Many trees and shrubs have already died and many more will not make it through winter without your help. Please give them a good soak today. []

** WORLD'S OIL WILL RUN OUT IN TEN YEARS   ** The latest measurements confirm that the world's oil and natural gas supplies are running out too fast. At some time between 2010 and 2020 the world's supply of oil and gas will fall below the level required to meet international demand.

The US government is aware that we are about to endure a disastrous international energy shortage. According to Dr James McKenzie, a senior member of the climate change programme at the World Resources Institute in Washington, USA: "That's why we went to war in Iraq."

We always knew the world's oil reserves would run out eventually. The oil was formed by natural geological processes which occurred over millions of years. Oil consumption presently exceeds 25 billion barrels a year and demand continues to spiral upward, out of control. The outcome is inevitable.

In the 21st Century we rely on oil (petrol) and gas for transport - cars, lorries, ships, aircraft - as well as electrical power. We cannot survive without oil and gas, and when the supply runs out the great engine of Western civilization will finally grind to a halt. We are heading for an event that will be remembered as one of the great disasters of human history, and life is going to get harder for everybody as the day of reckoning draws nearer.

In the years ahead, wars will be fought over oil and fuel as the oil-dependent superpowers struggle in vein to preserve our unsustainable way of life. We are entering a period of great change and there are be difficult times ahead. The process has already begun. Students of prophecy will be familiar with certain relevant verses from Christian scripture concerning the signs of the end times (Matt. 24.8; Mk 13.8, Rom. 8.22; Rev. 12.03, 21.1-4). As it was translated in 1961 in the New English Bible: "With these things, the birth pangs of the new age begin" (Mt.24:8; Mk.13:8). Whether you are religious or secular, you should be aware that the tide of history is turning.

In North America, where we use far more oil than anywhere else on Earth, the vast majority (71%) of electrical power generation is entirely dependent on fossil fuels - coal (52%), gas (16%), and oil (3%). The world's natural gas is running out along with the oil, and the coal supply is not unlimited either. Nuclear energy contributes only one-fifth to the US power network, and 7% of power is hydroelectric. Only 2% of US electricity production is from renewable sources. As we continue to burning up the world's dwindling fossil energy sources at a terrifying rate, we simultaneously unleash catastrophic damage to the natural environment.

The Insider recently reported a wave of four major electrical power outages which struck the US; then the UK; followed by Denmark and Sweden; and then Italy, Switzerland, Austria and France. The effects only lasted a few hours, but each case was the biggest power failure in the history of the affected country. These massive power cuts were separated by a matter of days. The governments were only practicing this time. This is just the beginning.

It would be prudent to pursue alternative energy sources before it is too late, but the oil corporations will never allow this to happen. So important is oil as a resource that it brings great wealth and power to those who control it. Consequently, our corrupt politicians, whose power is lavishly funded with oil money, prefer to serve the short-term interests of greedy oil executives than the long-term interests of ordinary people like you. But as long as we have food in our bellies and entertainment to keep us busy, why should we care? Thus, it is the immorality and indifference of our species that ultimately leads to our own demise.

Nothing lasts forever. Like all the great civilizations in the past, ours has a limited life-span. A few years from now the Westernized world will reach the point where there is no longer enough fuel to sustain civilization in its present form. This will literally be the end of civilization as we know it. []

** FOUR CRUCIAL RESOURCES THAT MAY RUN OUT IN YOUR LIFETIME ** ** By Loz Blain ** **Oil ** <span style="background-clip: initial; background-color: yellow; background-origin: initial; color: #343434; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The modern world is built on oil. It powers transport, construction, manufacturing, food production - our entire economy. The sky-high living standards and widespread disconnection from manual labor that we enjoy today is all thanks to the Industrial Revolution of the early 1900s, and it's based on cheap, accessible oil. The Peak Oil theory, if you haven't already encountered it, suggests that oil production for a given reserve will follow a bell curve. Production for the reserve will rise to a peak, and then begin declining due to the fact that as levels get lower, it becomes more expensive to retrieve, ending up at a point where you have to put more energy into sucking up and refining the oil than you get out of using it. The theory is said to hold whether you're talking about an individual oil well, an entire oil field or the entire global oil reserve - and once the peak is passed, the decline in production is said to be as sharp as the rise toward the peak was. It's a theory backed by the vast majority of scientists and energy economists, such as the [|International Energy Agency]. And according to the theory, we're very close to that peak point right now, if it hasn't already passed. Certainly, the more positive estimations say we might be a maximum of 10 years from the peak at current projections. And this at a time when the Earth's population is ballooning, and massive countries like China and India are industrializing and increasing their oil demand at an enormous rate. For some truly scary and apocalyptic reading on what might happen once that peak hits, check out lawyer Matt Savinar's [|Life After the Oil Crash] website, which draws together a pretty convincing range of sources. On the rebuttal side, there are people promoting the idea that oil isn't a fossil fuel, created by dead biomass buried beneath the Earth's surface. The Russian theory of " [|abiotic oil] " that became popular in the 1950s claims that oil is produced from a monstrous reserve of hydrocarbons in the Earth's primordial core. Oil is created in the Earth's incredibly hot mantle layer, and pushed up into the crust, where gargantuan reserves are available to us if we just drill deep enough. But it's a scientifically unproven theory, promoted in recent times most strongly by one man, [|Thomas Gold], an astronomer who died in 2004. And the [|responding arguments for biogenic oil], from Petroleum Geologists, are very strong. So it looks fairly clear that sometime in the next few decades, oil production is going to start to fall, just as global demand is rising. Prices are forecast to skyrocket, and the effect on societies worldwide will reflect just how important fossil fuels are to us. Apart from oil control wars - which many would say we're already witnessing in the middle east - we can expect the industrial world to be turned on its head, starting with the economy and ending with a complete lifestyle revolution where food production, among other things, is brought right back into the backyard. <span style="background-clip: initial; background-color: yellow; background-origin: initial; color: #343434; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;">You can see why we tend to make alternative energy stories such a high priority at Gizmag. **<span style="background-clip: initial; background-color: yellow; background-origin: initial; color: #343434; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Food **

Consider this: since 2005, the price of wheat has more than tripled. So has the price of corn. Rice has gone up more than 500%. These price increases reflect a dwindling of global food stocks - demand for food is rising faster than our ability to produce it. The phenomenon has been dubbed the " <span style="background-color: yellow; color: #1554c3; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none;">[|global food crisis of 2008] " - but some are beginning to refer to it as the " [|perpetual food crisis] ." It's not just rising populations we're facing, it's a rising standard of living in developing mega-countries such as China and India. As these giant economies start to move, the national diet steps up from a grain base to start including more and more meat. In China, for example, the average person ate around 20kg of meat per year back in 1980. In 2007, that was <span style="background-color: yellow; color: #1554c3; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none;">[|more like 50kg] <span style="background-clip: initial; background-color: yellow; background-origin: initial; color: #343434; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> and rising. Meat is produced by feeding grain to livestock - and the calorie yield of meat is about one fifth of the grain used to produce it. Eating meat, in other words, is effectively throwing out 80% of the calories you could be eating if you ate the grains instead of passing them through a cow. In tough times, meat is a wasteful food - not only of calories, but of agricultural land. As we learned from [|Dr. Dickson Despommier in Gizcast #9], we're already farming around 80% of the arable land on the planet. In simple terms, by 2030 we're going to have to find a way to meet an estimated 50% greater demand. Part of our response will come in the form of enhanced genetic engineering of crops to produce higher yields, in high-tech fertilizer and pesticide solutions. But the widespread use of genetically engineered crops tends to put the planet's agricultural future - and a lot of its money - in the hands of corporate giants like [|Monsanto], which has already been accused of [|abusing its dominance]. <span style="background-clip: initial; background-color: yellow; background-origin: initial; color: #343434; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;">Most fertilisers are based on fossil fuels - so as oil goes into decline, these will become vastly more expensive - and pesticides which, while they provide a degree of protection against crop losses, can often have their own issues, leaching into groundwater and causing delayed-reaction health issues. With high obesity rates, the Western world could certainly afford to cut down on food consumption - but this would represent a seismic change in attitude, and is highly unlikely until we're forced to by soaring food prices. But, even if we do start eating less, the problem will continue to worsen unless our production capacity dramatically rises, or our population dramatically lowers. It's not a nice picture. **<span style="background-clip: initial; background-color: yellow; background-origin: initial; color: #343434; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Water ** <span style="background-clip: initial; background-color: yellow; background-origin: initial; color: #343434; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Along with increased food and energy requirements, we're going to need vastly more water. We'll need it agriculturally, industrially, domestically and as part of energy production needs. All those demands are growing fast. And while we're not actually running out of fresh water, we can't create more to go around - at least not without considerable expense. According to the [|World Economic Forum], within 20 years water will become a bigger theme for investors than oil - and water scarcity is likely to worsen the global food crisis by preventing food production equal to the size of the grain crops of India and America combined. Climate change is already [|playing havoc with established weather patterns], causing drought, flood and other extremes of weather that set new records each year. In many extreme weather events, fresh water falls so fast and in such huge amounts that it becomes impossible to capture and use, and it becomes a destructive force instead of a replenishing one. The vast majority of our fresh water supplies - somewhere around 70% - are used in agriculture, and this gives us a good place to start looking for conservation solutions. And it's an area in which technology can definitely make a big impact. But still, many are predicting that the water squeeze will hit before we even start feeling the effects of peak oil. **<span style="background-clip: initial; background-color: yellow; background-origin: initial; color: #343434; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Fish ** While food as a whole is forecast to come under intense pressure, the future for fish seems far bleaker. It's estimated that unless drastic (and extremely politically difficult) action is taken immediately, humans will eat fish pretty much out of existence within the next 50 years. According to most projections, <span style="background-color: yellow; color: #1554c3; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none;">[|we will be the generation that runs out of wild fish] <span style="background-clip: initial; background-color: yellow; background-origin: initial; color: #343434; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">. A [|combination of commercial greed, weak policy, consumer disinterest, massive waste and blatant disregard for what flimsy rules are in place] has seen about 30% of fish species lose more than 90% of their populations since 1950. Once a population hits a certain terminal level, it simply can't sustain itself any more. And as each species dies out, the reduction of biodiversity accelerates the rate of decline of the other species around it. <span style="background-clip: initial; background-color: yellow; background-origin: initial; color: #343434; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The problem becomes far worse when fisheries and consumers ignore the minimum size limits set to allow fish to reach maturity and breed before they're eaten. Undersize fish are scarily common in European markets and others around the world. <span style="background-clip: initial; background-color: yellow; background-origin: initial; color: #343434; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The only plan that seems to have any chance to stall or reverse this accelerating decline is to set up marine wildlife reserves all over the globe, covering between 30 and 40% of the world's oceans. But it would be virtually impossible to reach international consensus on such a plan, let alone enforce it across the massive expanses of the world's oceans. <span style="background-clip: initial; background-color: yellow; background-origin: initial; color: #343434; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Fishery lobbies stridently oppose any measure to allow fish stocks to recover, and commercial boats ignore or find ways around the laws that are passed. You can understand why; their catches and their profits are in a steep decline. They feel the rules need to be relaxed so they can earn a living. It's a great example of the catastrophic short-term decision-making our species is renowned for. This has, of course, been a hugely simplified overview of these four interconnected issues. And there are some potential solutions being developed for each - although each proposed solution seems to come with significant drawbacks and large expenses of its own. The simple fact is that our burgeoning population is already putting the planet's resources under severe stress, and it's going to take a number of broad and large-scale breakthroughs to invent our way out of trouble. If we don't, the next hundred years could look a lot like a reversal of the last hundred. []

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/NaturalResources.html

<span style="background-color: yellow; color: #262626; font-family: Arial; font-size: 110%; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 13pt;">The world is heading for an "ecological credit crunch" far worse than the current financial crisis because humans are over-using the natural resources of the planet, an international study warns today. The Living Planet report calculates that humans are using 30% more resources than the Earth can replenish each year, which is leading to deforestation, degraded soils, polluted air and water, and dramatic declines in numbers of fish and other species. As a result, we are running up an ecological debt of $4tr (£2.5tr) to $4.5tr every year - double the estimated losses made by the world's financial institutions as a result of the credit crisis - say the report's authors, led by the conservation group WWF, formerly the World Wildlife Fund. The figure is based on a UN report which calculated the economic value of services provided by ecosystems destroyed annually, such as diminished rainfall for crops or reduced flood protection. The problem is also getting worse as populations and consumption keep growing faster than technology finds new ways of expanding what can be produced from the natural world. This had led the report to predict that by 2030, if nothing changes, mankind would need two planets to sustain its lifestyle. "The recent downturn in the global economy is a stark reminder of the consequences of living beyond our means," says James Leape, WWF International's director general. "But the possibility of financial recession pales in comparison to the looming ecological credit crunch." The report continues: "We have only one planet. Its capacity to support a thriving diversity of species, humans included, is large but fundamentally limited. When human demand on this capacity exceeds what is available - when we surpass ecological limits - we erode the health of the Earth's living systems. Ultimately this loss threatens human well-being." Speaking yesterday in London, the report's authors also called for politicians to mount a huge international response in line with the multibillion-dollar rescue plan for the economy. "They now need to turn their collective action to a far more pressing concern and that's the survival of all life on planet Earth," said Chief Emeka Anyaoku, the president of WWF International. Sir David King, the British government's former chief scientific adviser, said: "We all need to agree that there's a crisis of understanding, that we're removing the planet's biodiverse resources at a rate which is as fast if not faster than the world's last great extinction." At the heart of the Living Planet report is an index of the health of the world's natural systems, produced by the Zoological Society of London and based on 5,000 populations of more than 1,600 species, and on an "ecological footprint" of human demands for goods and services. For the first time the report also contains detailed information on the "water footprint" of every country, and claims 50 countries are already experiencing "moderate to severe water stress on a year-round basis". It also shows that 27 countries are "importing" more than half the water they consume - in the form of water used to produce goods from wheat to cotton - including the UK, Switzerland, Austria, Norway and the Netherlands. Based on figures from 2005, the index indicates global biodiversity has declined by nearly a third since 1970. Breakdowns of the overall figure show the tropical species index fell by half and the temperate index remained stable but at historically low levels. Divided up another way, indices for terrestrial, freshwater and marine species, and for tropical forests, drylands and grasslands all showed significant declines. Of the main geographic regions, only the Nearctic zone around the Arctic sea and covering much of North America showed no overall change. Over the same period the ecological footprint of the human population has nearly doubled, says the report.

This is a graph of the estimated population of the world and its predicted population in the next 15-20 years.


 * Rates of the World Population Increase**
 * Date || Estimated Population || Doubling Time ||
 * 8000 B.C. || 5 million || 1,500 years ||
 * A.D. 1650 || 0.5 billion || 200 years ||
 * 1859 || 1 billion || 80 years ||
 * 1925 || 2 billion || 45 years ||
 * 1986 || 5 billion || 40 years ||
 * Predicted Year || Predicted Population ||  ||
 * 2050 || 9+ billion || 15 years ||

"Few people think twice about crowds at the beach or being packed into subways like sardines. Still fewer are aware that the world's explosive human population growth is seriously straining Earth's ability to support so many people to provide enough fresh water and food and to dispose of the pollutants and mountains of wastes generated by the needs of daily life." -Resources: Natures Riches By: Roy A. Gallant

==<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans',Tahoma,Arial,'sans serif'; font-size: 20px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">[|Advantages and Disadvantages of Natural Energy Sources] == Using natural energy resources to generate power is gaining popularity everyday, especially among home-owners. This is extremely necessary to reduce our current, vital dependency on fossil fuels. Apart from the fact that fossil fuels are depleting fast, the increasing amounts of fossil fuels we burn each day is contributing greatly to climate change, causing the pollution of air and surrounding environments. However, it is possible to save the earth and its resources if we act now by switching to natural and renewable energy sources. Here are some of the many ** advantages ** related to the use of natural and r enewable energy sources: <span style="color: #595959; font-family: Tahoma; line-height: 20pt; margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;">Anyone who uses energy from renewable sources will be free from any effect of gas, energy or electricity price rises by companies. This means that you can become totally energy efficient and independent, eliminating your dependency on the world’s fossil fuel supplies. Like everything else in this world, renewable energy has a few ** disadvantages ** as well such as: Renewable energy technologies are dependent on natural phenomena and cannot be used to generate power everywhere. For example, wind turbines can only be installed in areas with high wind velocity and solar panels in areas with great amount of sunshine.
 * <span style="color: #595959; font-family: Tahoma,helvetica,sans-serif;">Renewable energy can be produced from the sun, wind, tides, and geothermal activity, which are all free to use. Besides the initial cost of installation, which includes solar panels, wind turbines, and geothermal energy equipment, there are no other costs, and no fuel requirements.
 * <span style="color: #595959; font-family: Tahoma,helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 26px;">You can use as much or as little of the re newable electricity of which you generate, without feeling guilty for any wastage.
 * Oil, gas and coal supplies are limited and ultimately, they will run out some day. If we have the infrastructure already in place to generate energy from natural sources, this won’t be as much of a problem.
 * <span style="color: #595959; font-family: Tahoma,helvetica,sans-serif;">The initial cost of installing r enewable energy technologies may be quite high.
 * <span style="color: #595959; font-family: Tahoma,helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 26px;">Although it is very difficult and unlikely that you will be able to completely replace your current power supply to the use of renewable energy, but it is always possible to put in some effort combine together different energy technologies, such as a wind turbine and solar panel to generate power according to your needs.

http://www.solarpowerwindenergy.org/2010/01/20/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-natural-energy-sources/

The Behavior and Effects of Oil Spills In Aquatic Invironments

INTRODUCTION <span style="background-clip: initial; background-color: yellow; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 10pt;">When oil is spilled into an aquatic environment, it can harm organisms that live on or around the water surface and those that live under water. Spilled oil can also damage parts of the //food chain//, including human food resources. <span style="background-clip: initial; background-color: yellow; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 10pt;">The severity of the impact of an oil spill depends on a variety of factors, including characteristics of the oil itself. Natural conditions, such as water temperature and weather, also influence the behavior of oil in aquatic environments. Various types of habitats have differing sensitivities to oil spills as well. SUMMARY
 * WHEN WE THINK ** of oil spills, we usually think of oil tankers spilling their cargo in oceans or seas. However, oil spilled on land often reaches lakes, rivers, and wetlands, where it can also cause damage. Oceans and other saltwater bodies are referred to as marine environments. Lakes, rivers, and other inland bodies of water are called freshwater environments. The term aquatic refers to both marine and freshwater environments.
 * <span style="background-clip: initial; background-color: yellow; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 10pt;">SPILLED OIL **<span style="background-clip: initial; background-color: yellow; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 10pt;">immediately begins to move and weather, breaking down and changing its physical and chemical properties. As these processes occur, the oil threatens surface resources and a wide range of subsurface aquatic organisms linked in a complex food chain. Many different types of aquatic habitats exist, with varied sensitivities to the harmful effects of oil contamination and different abilities to recuperate from oil spills. In some areas, habitats and populations can recover quickly. In other environments, however, recovery from persistent or stranded oil may take years. These detrimental effects are caused by both petroleum and non-petroleum oil.

http://www.epa.gov/oem/docs/oil/edu/oilspill_book/chap1.pdf

** Abstract ** Evidence suggests that allergic respiratory diseases such as hay fever and bronchial asthma have become more common world-wide in the last two decades, and the reasons for this increase are still largely unknown. A major responsible factor could be outdoor air pollution, derived from cars and other vehicles. Studies have demonstrated that urbanization and high levels of vehicle emissions and westernized lifestyle is correlated with the increasing frequency of pollen-induced respiratory allergy. People who live in urban areas tend to be more affected by pollen-induced respiratory allergy than those from of rural areas. Pollen allergy has been one of the most frequent models used to study the interrelationship between air pollution and respiratory allergic diseases. Pollen grains or plant-derived paucimicronic components carry allergens that can produce allergic symptoms. They may also interact with air pollution (particulate matter, ozone) in producing these effects. There is evidence that air pollutants may promote airway sensitization by modulating the allergenicity of airborne allergens. Furthermore, airway mucosal damage and impaired mucociliary clearance induced by air pollution may facilitate the access of inhaled allergens to the cells of the immune system. In addition, vegetation reacts with air pollution and environmental conditions and influence the plant allergenicity. Several factors influence this interaction, including type of air pollutants, plant species, nutrient balance, climatic factors, degree of airway sensitization and hyperresponsiveness of exposed subjects.

[]

** Temperatures are rising ** <span style="background-clip: initial; background-color: yellow; background-origin: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">The average global temperature has warmed by more than 0.7°C over the past century, and the present warming rate is 0.2°C per decade. If continued, this trend will lead to a temperature rise of about 3°C by the end of this century (relative to pre-industrial temperatures). This would be the highest global temperature rise recorded in recent [|PALAEOCLIMATE] history. The instrumental record showing a warming earth is supported by satellite measurements of [|TROPOSPHERIC] warming and by observations in the [|CRYOSPHERE] and [|BIOSPHERE]. The global warming trend is evident from three independent sets of measurements: air temperature over land, air temperature over sea at night, and sea-surface temperature. Global warming since the 1970s has been more rapid over land than over the oceans, as would be expected from an increasing [|human-caused greenhouse effect]. The amount of warming observed varies considerably from place to place, because natural variability of climate can add to human-caused warming in some places, or subtract from it in others. Local factors (such as cooling from aerosols of emitted fine particles in the atmosphere) may also come into play. That the earth's surface has experienced a recent warming is also supported by the widespread recession of mountain glaciers over the last few decades, and by measurements made at different depths in boreholes in sediments and ice layers that carry signatures of the climate at the time they were laid down, which can be used to estimate the historical rise in temperature. []