Living Planet Report Details Dangers of Living beyond the Environment's Means

As global financial markets learn difficult lessons on the consequences of unregulated spending, a new report issued by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) warns of the danger to future prosperity if the reckless over-consumption of the Earth's natural capital is left unchecked.
WWF's Living Planet Report 2008, produced with the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Global Footprint Network (GFN), shows more than three quarters of the world's people now living in nations that are ecological debtors, where national consumption has outstripped their country's biological capacity. Presently, human demands on the world's natural capital measure nearly a third more than earth can sustain. In addition, global natural wealth and diversity continue to decline, and more and more countries are slipping into a state of permanent or seasonal water stress.

Crisis could shift focus to environment

The financial crisis and its aftermath could help set the stage for the transformative changes urgently needed to help the planet sustain life, a distinguished U.S. environmentalist said yesterday.

The meltdown of financial markets galvanized governments and a concerned public watched as they acted in concert, adjusting their policies in response to emerging leadership, James Gustave (Gus) Speth said in an interview.

"The central role of government in regulating the economy and protecting people has certainly been confirmed - and dramatically confirmed - during this crisis," said the dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University.

The Economy Versus the Environment

Environmentalists are often accused — not always unfairly — of overplaying the fear card. With apocalyptic references to melting polar ice caps, rising sea levels and widespread species extinction, the driving message of environmentalism is that the future is doomed, unless we act now to save it.

But what happens when another more alarming, more immediate catastrophe co-opts people's fear? That's the predicament greens find themselves in now, with what is potentially the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression scaring Americans out of their wits. With the tanking economy dominating the news, and the government willing to virtually bankrupt itself to bail out the financial sector, it could be hard to push the climate change agenda — and possibly hard to find any money left to support it. "If this crisis consumes all of our attention, it might definitely impact the speed at which [global warming] legislation could be passed," says Wiley Barbour, the founder of the American Carbon Registry. (Listen to Barbour talk about the effect that the financial crisis will have on global warming action on this week's Greencast.)