If humanity continues sucking up resources at its current rate, we will need a second planet to meet our material needs by 2030 and the equivalent of 2.8 planets by 2050. That's the conclusion of the World Wildlife Fund's biennial "Living Planet Report", which evaluates our ecological footprint--the total demand on Earth's ecosystems. The good news is, we can still turn things around.
The WWF's ecological footprint metric tracks "the area of biologically productive land and water required to provide the renewable resources people use, and includes the space needed for infrastructure and vegetation to absorb waste carbon dioxide (CO2)." According to the organization, our footprint exceeded the planet's capacity by 50% in 2007. It has doubled in size since 1966.
Read more here if you haven't already abandoned your desk and started stockpiling canned food.
or stockpile McDonald's:
ReplyDeletehttp://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101012/bs_yblog_upshot/mcdonalds-happy-meal-resists-decomposition-for-six-months