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10/27/2007: "Humans fail sustainability audit"

With its Geo-4 report, the United Nations tells us that most aspects of the Earth's natural environment are in decline; and that the decline will affect us, the planet's human inhabitants, in some pretty important ways.

From over-fishing and pollution in the oceans to climate-changing emissions in the atmosphere, it concludes that pretty much everything is going downhill.

More greenhouse gases, more widespread pollution, declining availability of fresh water, deforestation, degradation of farmland, ocean acidification - it is hard to come up with a more comprehensive and, frankly, a more depressing list.

Yet humans are living longer; and in most parts of the world, living standards are higher. Unep calculates that per-capita GDP has gone up from close to $6,000 to just over $8,000 over the last 20 years.

Humans might be living longer and richer lives now, this implies; but environmental degradation must at some point curb or even reverse the trend.

[ It's been unpopular for years to think about this, so we haven't. Now we see that we are living beyond our means, and a balancing is coming. If there are too many humans, that balancing means unnecessary death and suffering, which we created in the name of ending death and suffering. Very smart, these simians. ]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7060072.stm

read the report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/15_10_2007_un.pdf