<p>The report cautions about the larger impact of the over consumptive lifestyle of rich countries.As the world is celebrating the Earth Day today, the theme this is year is, ‘the face of the climate change’ and to rescue the planet from the threats of climate change.<br /><br /> With good intentions many people from different continents and countries will take part in this event creating awareness on the threat to the living ecosystems. And this is a small step towards addressing the myriad problems of climate change. The root causes are deeply ingrained into the everyday life style of common man living in post industrial society. <br /><br />The natural capital of mankind, water, soil, air, oceans and grass lands are the living ecological assets that provide goods and services for the humanity on a regular basis. They perform invisible but basic functions like food production, fish regeneration, absorption of carbon and assist in climate stabilisation. <br /><br />This biomass encompasses over 230 billion tones of living material that earth produces every year, this annual bounty is the ‘primary production’ for humanity and most of it comes from global south. </p>.<p>The tropical countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America are the hosts to these ecosystems.In the name of development there is continues onslaught on these capital resources.<br /><br />Basic resource<br /><br />Land is the basic resource that sustains human beings through production of food, fibre and timber. Unfortunately over the years, we have continued policies that abuse land leading to depletion of the fertile soil. Each year the earth loses 24 billion tons of fertile soil affecting 1.5 billion people globally, especially the women and children. <br /><br />Having destroyed this productive land we are grabbing land in poorer countries to sow the seeds of further destruction leading to assault on livelihood of poor indigenous communities.<br /><br /> What have we done to Oceans? We have increased harvesting of marine fish catch from 19 million tons in 1950 to 87 million tones in 2005, which has left the fisheries overexploited.The Living Planet Report produced by European Space Agency and World Wide Fund International in 2012 provides indicators of how earth’s fragile resources are overexploited and over harvested that has impact on all life forms including humanity.<br /><br /> Jim Leape, of World Wide Fund International points out “We are living as if we have an extra planet at our disposal. We are using 50 per cent more resources than the earth can provide, and unless we change course, by 2030 even two planets will not be enough.”<br /> The report cautions about the larger impact of over consumptive life style of rich countries that has led to larger ecological footprints. It states “If everyone lived like an average resident of USA, a total of four earths would be required to regenerate humanity’s annual demand for nature”. <br /><br />What is the impact of such large ecological foot print on earth? According to Global Footprint Network” Global overshoot occurs when humanity’s demand on the natural world exceeds the biosphere’s supply, or regenerative capacity. </p>.<p>Such overshoot leads to a depletion of earth’s life supporting natural capital and a build up of waste. At the global level, the bio-capacity deficit and overshoot are the same, since there is no net import of resources to the planet.” The ecological overshoot started in 1970s an increased to 50 per cent deficit in 2008. The bio-capacity per person decreased form 3.2 global hectares (gha) in 1961 to 1.8 gha per capita in 2008.<br /><br />This has led to depletion of the resources leading to collapse of ecosystems. It is manifested in terms of climate change that has affected several parts of earth. The face of the climate change is hitting rich and poor nations alike. The crisis is building up over the years but the world’s political and business leaders are not willing to recognise the problem.<br /><br />What are the ways to address the issue of overshooting bio-capacity that is accelerating climate change? The scientists who created the crisis have responded with a new technical solution called ‘Geo-engineering’. </p>.<p>This refers to large scale man made efforts to adjust major planetary systems to climate change that includes the proposals like pumping sulphates into stratosphere to block sunlight or to change the chemistry of the Oceans to sequester carbon. There are apprehensions that this technique could damage the ozone layer and disrupt weather patterns, in particular monsoons, causing increased crop failure and hunger. These solutions also show the myopic mindset of some of the scientists who want to resolve the ecological and social problems with technical solutions.<br /><br />What is intriguing is that Mahatma Gandhi, predicted this over a century ago when the industrial civilisation was in its early stages in 1908. He said that if India were to adopt the model of development that is based on exploitation of nature’s capital, then we would need several earth’s. As a visionary, he wanted India to follow a different model of development based on need and not the greed to destroy the nature’s capital.<br /><br /></p>
<p>The report cautions about the larger impact of the over consumptive lifestyle of rich countries.As the world is celebrating the Earth Day today, the theme this is year is, ‘the face of the climate change’ and to rescue the planet from the threats of climate change.<br /><br /> With good intentions many people from different continents and countries will take part in this event creating awareness on the threat to the living ecosystems. And this is a small step towards addressing the myriad problems of climate change. The root causes are deeply ingrained into the everyday life style of common man living in post industrial society. <br /><br />The natural capital of mankind, water, soil, air, oceans and grass lands are the living ecological assets that provide goods and services for the humanity on a regular basis. They perform invisible but basic functions like food production, fish regeneration, absorption of carbon and assist in climate stabilisation. <br /><br />This biomass encompasses over 230 billion tones of living material that earth produces every year, this annual bounty is the ‘primary production’ for humanity and most of it comes from global south. </p>.<p>The tropical countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America are the hosts to these ecosystems.In the name of development there is continues onslaught on these capital resources.<br /><br />Basic resource<br /><br />Land is the basic resource that sustains human beings through production of food, fibre and timber. Unfortunately over the years, we have continued policies that abuse land leading to depletion of the fertile soil. Each year the earth loses 24 billion tons of fertile soil affecting 1.5 billion people globally, especially the women and children. <br /><br />Having destroyed this productive land we are grabbing land in poorer countries to sow the seeds of further destruction leading to assault on livelihood of poor indigenous communities.<br /><br /> What have we done to Oceans? We have increased harvesting of marine fish catch from 19 million tons in 1950 to 87 million tones in 2005, which has left the fisheries overexploited.The Living Planet Report produced by European Space Agency and World Wide Fund International in 2012 provides indicators of how earth’s fragile resources are overexploited and over harvested that has impact on all life forms including humanity.<br /><br /> Jim Leape, of World Wide Fund International points out “We are living as if we have an extra planet at our disposal. We are using 50 per cent more resources than the earth can provide, and unless we change course, by 2030 even two planets will not be enough.”<br /> The report cautions about the larger impact of over consumptive life style of rich countries that has led to larger ecological footprints. It states “If everyone lived like an average resident of USA, a total of four earths would be required to regenerate humanity’s annual demand for nature”. <br /><br />What is the impact of such large ecological foot print on earth? According to Global Footprint Network” Global overshoot occurs when humanity’s demand on the natural world exceeds the biosphere’s supply, or regenerative capacity. </p>.<p>Such overshoot leads to a depletion of earth’s life supporting natural capital and a build up of waste. At the global level, the bio-capacity deficit and overshoot are the same, since there is no net import of resources to the planet.” The ecological overshoot started in 1970s an increased to 50 per cent deficit in 2008. The bio-capacity per person decreased form 3.2 global hectares (gha) in 1961 to 1.8 gha per capita in 2008.<br /><br />This has led to depletion of the resources leading to collapse of ecosystems. It is manifested in terms of climate change that has affected several parts of earth. The face of the climate change is hitting rich and poor nations alike. The crisis is building up over the years but the world’s political and business leaders are not willing to recognise the problem.<br /><br />What are the ways to address the issue of overshooting bio-capacity that is accelerating climate change? The scientists who created the crisis have responded with a new technical solution called ‘Geo-engineering’. </p>.<p>This refers to large scale man made efforts to adjust major planetary systems to climate change that includes the proposals like pumping sulphates into stratosphere to block sunlight or to change the chemistry of the Oceans to sequester carbon. There are apprehensions that this technique could damage the ozone layer and disrupt weather patterns, in particular monsoons, causing increased crop failure and hunger. These solutions also show the myopic mindset of some of the scientists who want to resolve the ecological and social problems with technical solutions.<br /><br />What is intriguing is that Mahatma Gandhi, predicted this over a century ago when the industrial civilisation was in its early stages in 1908. He said that if India were to adopt the model of development that is based on exploitation of nature’s capital, then we would need several earth’s. As a visionary, he wanted India to follow a different model of development based on need and not the greed to destroy the nature’s capital.<br /><br /></p>
