ApocaDocuments (9) for the "Resource Depletion" scenario from this week
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Sun, Sep 27, 2009
from New Scientist:
Population: Overconsumption is the real problem
THERE is a pervading myth that efforts to fight climate change and other environmental perils will be to no avail unless we "do something" about population growth. Even seasoned analysts talk about the threat of "exponential" population growth. But there is no exponential growth. In most of the world fertility rates are falling fast, and the countries where population growth continues are those that contribute least to our planetary predicament.... Yet the arguments still don't fit the reality. The population "bomb" is fast being defused. Women across the poor world are having dramatically fewer babies than their mothers did -- mostly out of choice, not compulsion. Half a century ago, the worldwide average for the number of children a woman had was between five and six. Now she has 2.6. In the face of such a fall it is hard to see what more "doing something" about global population might achieve.... Even if the world population does stabilise soon and starts to glide downwards, that won't solve the world's environmental problems. The real issue is not overpopulation but overconsumption -- mostly in rich countries that have long since given up adding substantial numbers to their population. ...
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Overconsumption leads to growth, and that's what the economy needs, right?
ApocaDoc
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Sat, Sep 26, 2009
from Telegraph.co.uk:
World goes into 'ecological debt'
The global recession meant "ecological debt day" on September 25 fell a day later than the previous year for the first time in 20 years as less resources were used.
However environmental groups said the slow down was not enough to make a difference to the environmental damage being caused by over consumption, the burning of fossil fuels and intensive farming....
"Debt-fuelled overconsumption not only brought the financial system to the edge of collapse, it is pushing many of our natural life-support systems towards a precipic," he said.
"Politicians tell us to get back to business as usual, but if we bankrupt critical ecosystems no amount of government spending will bring them back.
"We need a radically different approach to 'rich world' consumption. While billions in poorer countries subsist, we consume vastly more and yet with little or nothing to show for it in terms of greater life satisfaction." ...
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If debt is the last growth industry, I wonder how I can profit from it?
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Fri, Sep 25, 2009
from The Economist:
A catastrophe is looming
THIS year's drought is the worst in east Africa since 2000, and possibly since 1991. Famine stalks the land. The failure of rains in parts of Ethiopia may increase the number needing food handouts by 5m, in addition to the 8m already getting them, in a population of 80m... In Mwingi district, in Kenya's Kamba region, the crops have totally failed. Villagers are surviving on monthly government handouts of maize-meal, rice and a little cooking oil. Worse than the hunger, say local leaders, is the thirst. People are digging wells by hand, but they hit rock... Meteorologists reckon the rains due in October and November will be heavier than usual. That would be good, if the east African authorities were prepared. But they are not. Mud slides and floods are likely, with streams and rivers carrying off the topsoil. Malaria and cholera may increase. Surviving cattle, weakened by drought, will drown or die of cold. ...
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Afrocalypse!
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Fri, Sep 25, 2009
from Bangor Daily News:
Herring catch limits could plummet
The availability of herring along the coast of Maine, where much of the catch is used as bait for the state's $250 million lobster industry, is a little bit better this fall than it was last year.
Next year, however, could be a different story....
The scientists who reviewed this summer's stock assessment for Atlantic herring came up with a lower recommendation of the allowable catch than regulators and officials had made in prior years. As a result, the annual overall quota for herring in 2010 likely is going to be 90,000 metric tons, which is 104,000 metric tons less than this year's limit of 194,000 metric tons. That larger quota is parceled among four fishing areas that include both inner and outer areas of the Gulf of Maine, one directly south of the gulf, and another west of Nantucket. ...
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We'll just switch to himming, eh?
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Thu, Sep 24, 2009
from Washington Post:
Environmentalists Seek to Wipe Out Plush Toilet Paper
It is a fight over toilet paper: the kind that is blanket-fluffy and getting fluffier so fast that manufacturers are running out of synonyms for "soft" (Quilted Northern Ultra Plush is the first big brand to go three-ply and three-adjective).
It's a menace, environmental groups say -- and a dark-comedy example of American excess.
The reason, they say, is that plush U.S. toilet paper is usually made by chopping down and grinding up trees that were decades or even a century old. They want Americans, like Europeans, to wipe with tissue made from recycled paper goods.
It has been slow going. Big toilet-paper makers say that they've taken steps to become more Earth-friendly but that their customers still want the soft stuff, so they're still selling it. ...
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If we in the US don't make this change, I daresay we are -- literally -- assholes.
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Thu, Sep 24, 2009
from Agence France-Presse:
World will need 70 percent more food in 2050: FAO
World food production must increase by 70 percent by 2050, to nourish a human population then likely to be 9.1 billion, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation forecast Wednesday... "Nearly all of the population growth will occur in developing countries. Sub-Saharan Africa's population is expected to grow the fastest (up 108 percent, 910 million people), and East and South East Asia's the slowest (up 11 percent, 228 million).
"Around 70 percent of the world population will live in cities or urban areas by 2050, up from 49 percent today," the document said.
The demand for food is expected to grow as a result of rising incomes as well as population growth, the discussion paper added. ...
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I'll be really old and stringy... but I volunteer!
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Wed, Sep 23, 2009
from COP15:
Future coffee: scarce, expensive -- but tasty
Climate change is prompting farmers in Guatemala to look for new fields for their coffee plantations. While temperatures have only increased by half a degree on average, this is enough to affect conditions for coffee plants. A similar development is likely to be seen in the entire Central American region over the next years.... "As a scientist it pains me to say it, but the conditions for coffee growing in many of the highland areas, where the best coffee is grown, could be better for coffee in the coming years. The coffee grown at those altitudes could have higher yields and it's likely that the producers will be able to take advantage in the short turn by growing those high-quality coffees more abundantly." ...
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"Peak Coffee" might result in a 12.3 percent decline in world productivity of everything!
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Wed, Sep 23, 2009
from TomDispatch (Michael Klare), via Mother Jones:
The Era of Xtreme Energy
The debate rages over whether we have already reached the point of peak world oil output or will not do so until at least the next decade. There can, however, be little doubt of one thing: we are moving from an era in which oil was the world's principal energy source to one in which petroleum alternatives -- especially renewable supplies derived from the sun, wind, and waves -- will provide an ever larger share of our total supply. But buckle your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride under Xtreme conditions.
It would, of course, be ideal if the shift from dwindling oil to its climate-friendly successors were to happen smoothly via a mammoth, well-coordinated, interlaced system of wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, and other renewable energy installations. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to occur. Instead, we will surely first pass through an era characterized by excessive reliance on oil's final, least attractive reserves along with coal, heavily polluting "unconventional" hydrocarbons like Canadian oil sands, and other unappealing fuel choices. ...
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Thank goodness "clean coal" is just around the corner!
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Tue, Sep 22, 2009
from Wyoming Tribune Eagle, from Desdemona Despair:
Beetle attack to change our [forests and] world
The tree looks alive, but it probably won't be for long. The brown cadavers of lodgepoles past stand among smaller, greener pines, testifying to the unavoidable truth: Change -- big change -- is coming.
"The general feeling is this will end when the food supply runs out," Frost says.
Looking out on the variegated landscape of greens, reds and browns, two things become clear.
One: This is one of the biggest ecological changes we have ever seen. It's daunting and scary and -- for the experts -- exciting all at the same time.
A plague of beetles, including one that just now is taking its turn, is cutting a swath through the national forests in north-central Colorado and into Wyoming. At the low end, it's possible that just 10 percent of large lodgepole pines will be left.
It's also possible that they all will be gone.
But other and smaller trees suddenly are being chewed up as well. Where that leads remains to be seen.
The implications of all this are impossible to pin down, but they could affect each and every one of us.
They possibly include an increase in global warming, large-scale wildfires and big changes in water supply.
And then there is this fact: These forests will never look the same again.
Two: This change is inevitable. Try as we might, there's no stopping it. ...
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What a lot of carbon-offsets waiting to be planted!
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