World is living beyond its means

. This figure comes out of the World Wildlife Fund's "Living Planet Report 2004". The report uses the concepts of the 'Ecological Footprint' and 'Energy Footprint'. The Ecological Footprint is the amount of area required to produce the food, fibre and timber that humans consume in different countries. In 2001, the global footprint was 13.5 billion hectares, or 2.2 hectares per person, whereas the Earth's biocapacity, based on its biologically productive area was only 11.3 billion hectares. The global overshoot began in the 1980s and has been growing ever since. The Ecological Footprint of the average North American was 3.0 hectares, while that of the average UK citizen was 1.7 and that of the average Asian or African, 0.7 hectares. Energy Footprints are calculated as being the area required to provide or absorb the waste from, fossil fuels, fuel wood, nuclear energy and hydropower. The fossil fuel footprint is calculated as the area required to sequester the carbon dioxide released when fossil fuels are burned, less the amount absorbed by the ocean. The fuel wood footprint is the area of forest needed to grow it. The hydropower footprint is the area occupied by dams and reservoirs. On this basis, humanity's Energy Footprint is about 7 billion global hectares, or about 6 hectares per US citizen, about 3.5 hectares per British citizen and less than 1 for each Asian and African. It does not take a mathematical genius to deduce that the human race is living a far from sustainable existence and headed for trouble. The full report may be downloaded from www.wwf.org.uk/filelibrary/pdf/lpr2004.pdf TS