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10/22/2004:
"Consumption of Resources Outstripping Planet's Ability to Cope"
by Jonathan FowlerGENEVA - People are plundering the world's resources at a pace that outstrips the planet's capacity to sustain life, the environmental group WWF said Thursday.
In its regular Living Planet Report, the World Wide Fund for Nature said humans currently consume 20 percent more natural resources than the earth can produce.
Consumption of fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil increased by almost 700 percent between 1961 and 2001, it said. But the planet is unable to move as fast to absorb the resulting carbon-dioxide emissions that degrade the earth's protective ozone layer.
"We are spending nature's capital faster than it can regenerate," said WWF chief Claude Martin, launching the conservation body's 40-page study.
"We are running up an ecological debt which we won't be able to pay off unless governments restore the balance between our consumption of natural resources and the earth's ability to renew them."
Populations of terrestrial, freshwater and marine species fell on average by 40 percent between 1970 and 2000, the study said. It cited destruction of natural habitats, pollution, overfishing and the introduction by humans of nonnative animals, such as cats and rats, which often drive out indigenous species.
"The question is how the world's entire population live with the resources of one planet," said Jonathan Loh, one of the report's authors.
Full Article:commondreams.org
