24 October 2006

We now pause for a public service announcement from Mother Earth

I've said it before and I'm sure I will say it again. We cannot address climate change and other ecological issues without some, probably significant, life style change in the west. The World Wildlife Fund and the Global Footprint Network have released an in depth analysis of world wide resource consumption including projections into the future. If current trends continue in less than fifty years (2050) we will be consuming twice what the planet can reasonably replenish. In effect we will spend half the year in an ecological deficit.

The analysis includes a number of alternate methods to address the situation, not all of them are totally distasteful. The later we leave it the worse it will be. We need to think about our lives and how we live them NOW. Each of us has a role to play. It is also painfully clear that Holy Grail of "the market" will not, indeed cannot, provide sufficiently for the changes that all of us will be required to make at some point in the next fifty years.

The report (PDF) can be downloaded here. Happy reading.

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