theweekmagazine:

Has mankind outgrown Earth?

A new report from the World Wildlife Fund says we’re gobbling up the planet’s resources at such an alarming rate that by 2030, even a second Earth wouldn’t be enough to sustain us

Which resources are we depleting?
Renewables like fish, water, timber, and food are being used up much faster than previously thought. According to experts, mankind’s “ecological footprint” is now over 50 percent higher than it was in 2008, meaning it takes 1.5 years for Earth to regenerate the natural resources we use up annually. 

Why is our ecological footprint growing?
The world’s population, which according to the U.N. surpassed 7 billion last October, is getting too big, and the average individual is using more than he or she needs. “The excessive demands that we are putting on the planet will inevitably lead to acute water shortages, a chronic food crisis, and rising prices for energy, metals, and minerals,” says Robert Walker at the Huffington Post.

Keep reading

I could never understand how economies based on growing populations consuming non-renewable resources could be sustainable.

tartantambourine:

Last week, the Republican-controlled House Armed Services Committee voted to prohibit the Defense Department from buying any alternative fuels that cost more than fossil fuels (all of them) and to repeal part of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that has been the catalyst for efforts to wean the country off petroleum. If successful, experts say the amendment could be a fatal blow to the already struggling biofuels industry, which owes its survival thus far to large military purchases.

The Republican war on the environment continues. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that “Conservatives” would want to “conserve” the Earth? 

tartantambourine:

The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources acted this week to close waters along the Gulf Coast to shrimping due to widespread reports from scientists and fishermen of deformed seafood and drastic fall-offs in populations two years after the BP oil spill. All waters in the Mississippi Sound and Mobile Bay, and some areas of Bon Secour, Wolf Bay and Little Lagoon were closed to shrimpers. Reports of grossly deformed seafood all along the Gulf from Louisiana to the Florida panhandle have been logged with increasing urgency, but Alabama is the first state to actually close waters to the seafood industry.

Some Alabama officials are hedging on the real reason for closing shrimping but this report is largely substantiated by multiple sources.