Numbers detail humanity's resource gluttony

The latest report card on the state of our planet shows that, despite all the green talk of recent years, humanity’s demands on Earth are growing ever more crushing.

Released last week, the 2010 edition of WWF’s biennial Living Planet Report indicates that people are now using up 50 per cent more natural resources than the planet can sustain. Produced in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network, the report measures the health of almost 8,000 populations of more than 2,500 species.

“There is an alarming rate of biodiversity loss in low-income, often tropical countries while the developed world is living in a false paradise, fuelled by excessive consumption and high carbon emissions,” said Jim Leape, director general of WWF International.

Among the key numbers in the report:

• 60: Percentage by which the Living Planet Index — a measure of the health of biodiversity — has declined in the tropics since 1970.
• 1 1/2: Number of years it would take to renew the natural resources people consume in just one year.
• 2: Number of Earths we would need by 2030 under a business-as-usual scenario.
• 71: Number of countries feeling stress on blue water resources (ie, sources of water people use and don’t return to nature).
• 5: Number of major threats to biodiversity — habitat loss, over-exploitation of wild species, pollution, climate change and invasive species.
• 29: A rare bit encouraging news — percentage by which the Living Planet Index has increased in temperate regions since 1970.
• 2: Factor by which our global ecological footprint  has increased since 1966.
• 500 million: Number of people worldwide whose lives have been negatively affected by construction of dams.
• 62: Percentage of UK’s water footprint that is virtual water (ie, not consumed directly but embedded in the commodities and other products consumed by Britons).
• 2 millions: Tonnes of sewage and effluent that drain into world waterways every day
• 52: Percentage of marine fish stocks that are being exploited to the maximum, with no room for further expansion.
• 15: Percentage of man-made greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation.

The 10 countries with the largest per-capita ecological footprints are, in order, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Denmark, Belgium, United States, Estonia, Canada, Australia, Kuwait and Ireland. The footprint measurement takes into account impacts on carbon, grazing, forests, fishing, cropland and built-up land.

“Countries that maintain high levels of resource dependence are putting their own economies at risk,” said Mathis Wackernagel, president of the Global Footprint Network. “Those countries that are able to provide the highest quality of life on the lowest amount of ecological demand will not only serve the global interest, they will be the leaders in a resource-constrained world.”