BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | UK carbon output 'under-reported'
Whether you agree with the WWF report or not the fact remains that people in the UK consume too much, but perhaps more fundamentallywhat is consumed is produced inefficiently in terms of C02 footprint.
The report says humans currently consume 20% more natural resources than the Earth can produce, and that populations of terrestrial, freshwater and marine species fell on average by 40% between 1970 and 2000.Dr Claude Martin, director-general of WWF International, said: "We are spending Nature's capital faster than it can regenerate.
"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."
If we aren't doing it with credit then we are doing it with the environment. Something has got to change.
The big questions remain though how and by whom? While the ordinary bod on the Clapham Omnibus can make some difference, it really falls to Government and big corporations to change their behaviour and therby influence ours; a mutally re-inforcing circle.
Can it happen? If I am anything to go by, then it will be hard work. I believe in change. I believe in reducing my energy consumption and want more enviornmentally friendly products and services but I also have to consider financial cost and debt.
Companies like (dare I say it) BT have made a comittment to use only re-newal energy. If the government made such a comittment and other multinationals started doing the same, then a change would start to occur.
People simply don't see how this effects them. The costs, the effects must somehow be internalised so that change does occur.
I'm off to recycle my soapbox :)
Posted by Paul Goodison at October 22, 2004 11:04 AM | TrackBack