Wilderness lost

Australian researchers have found that about one tenth of the world's wilderness has been lost in the last twenty years. The lost area is over 3 million square kilometers and the losses have been greatest in South America (30%) and Africa (14%).

This is, unhappily, not a surprise. It's one of a series of recent studies that shows the increasing human dominance of the planet. Indeed, it's one of the less pessimistic. Taking the crude numbers it implies that some wilderness will last 200 years.

Wasting the Water of Life

I want to recommend the work of Prof. Arjen Hoekstra, University of Twente.

Hoekstra invented the Water Footprint, similar to the carbon footprint, and has published vast amounts of data. He also has emphatic views:

In Europe, the average consumer’s domestic use is typically only 1 to 2 per cent of their total water footprint: the vast majority relates to the products you consume ... about 90 per cent of our global water footprint relates to food. About one-third relates to the production of feed for the animals we consume.

In California, for instance, the state’s biggest water use is for feed crops. Meanwhile, you have this drought going on, and all of the time the focus is on how terrible it is to have a drought. But the real focus should be on how stupid it is to have such a big water demand in a region where droughts are fully expected.

You can use less and less water per unit of production, but if your population is growing and your consumption booming, then that is simply not sufficient.

Because it imports so many goods, three-quarters of the UK’s water consumption is actually outside of its borders. And about half of that usage is not sustainable.  

We in northern Europe should realise that we are actually quite well off with water, and ask why we import water-intensive goods from water-scarce areas. It doesn’t make sense that we produce so little of our own food.

 All round the world we are mining water rather than recycling it. Ground water WILL run out and if we aren't ready we will all be in bad trouble.

COP21: UN report shows that the national pledges are inadequate

You may have heard that the UN has produced a "synthesis report" on climate change. The report is 66 pages and very technical. There's a short overview - but key parts are almost unintelligible.

Here's what it probably meant to say:

• If global temperature reaches two degrees above the pre-industrial level (say, 1850) we'll be in bad, indeed catastrophic, trouble.
• If we can keep total greenhouse gas emissions to no more than 1,000 Gigatons of CO2, ever, then we have a 66% chance of keeping the temperature increase below two degrees.
• 119 countries have made pledges to reduce or reduce the growth in their greenhouse gas emissions.
• If all these countries keep their pledges and others follow their current trends then greenhouse gas emissions will keep rising until at least 2030. But they won't rise quite as much as they might have without the pledges.
• It's likely that by 2030 we will have emitted about 750 Gtons of CO2 and will be emitting about 57 Gtons per year.

But history will not stop in 2030. What follows?

• If emissions stop rising in 2030 and continue at the same rate we'll have emitted the whole 1,000 Gtons by 2035.
• If we start to reduce emissions in 2030 and do so by equal steps of 6 Gtons we'll have emitted the whole 1,000 Gtons by 2040.

But these cases are unreal for a mixture of technical, humanitarian and political reasons. For instance, the world cannot go from emissions growth to 10% pa reduction in one year. So all the practical scenarios (based on known technology) in which we keep the risk of catastrophic climate change below 66% require emissions to peak well before 2030. The earlier the peak the easier the transition.

The bottom line: The pledges are inadequate. Even if met they create a serious risk of catastrophic climate change.

Paving the road to hell

Roads are a major problem for the planet. Globally, many new roads are built into rainforest to support logging or dam building. These roads start a process of exploitation that is hard to stop and that transforms habitats and provides access to poachers. Since 2000, for instance, 30,000 miles of new roads have been cut into African rainforests. It's no surprise that poachers have killed two thirds of the forest elephants in that same period.

The rainforests will not survive the combined pressures of logging, settlement and clearance for pasture and cropping that road-building makes possible. And many species will not survive the loss of their rainforest homes.

This has happened at extraordinary speed and there's no sign that it's slowing down. The G20 meeting last October argued for annual spending of $2T pa (that's $2 million million pa) on infrastructure in developing countries. Only a fraction of that is likely to be roads; but that's still a lot of roads (and railways, power stations, airports, etc.)

Most of the species that existed 100 years ago are still with us, though in much reduced numbers. Their habitats have been greatly reduced and many will be gone in much less than 100 years if development continues. For some threatened species a few dozen animals may survive in zoos and game reserves. Many will disappeared leaving no more than stuffed examples in museums, films, if we're lucky, DNA sequences in some database.

A tragic loss and little time left.

Top economist backs the Greens

Greens and economists are often at odds. The reductionist short-termism that is usual in conventional economics is the antithesis of the Green view. So it's nice - if perhaps a bit worrying - when a top economist endorses us.

Here's what Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said in a recent interview with the Guardian:

“I think the Greens are right. We have to make sure that the benefits of growth are shared more equally. Anybody who is concerned about our environment has to be committed to a more egalitarian policy, because we can’t let those at the bottom have inadequate means.”

That's not entirely a Green view, of course. The problem with growth is not just that the benefits have gone to the richest 1%. It's also that the planet cannot stand continued growth in material things. Unlimited growth in mining, manufacturing and population, to name but three, is not merely undesirable but impossible.

We have been sold growth on the basis that everyone would benefit in the long run. But guess what? This is the long run and most of us haven't.

It's time for a new approach - an approach based on meeting needs and respecting planetary constraints rather than making profits. The Greens are the only party that has this at the centre of its thinking. The only party looking to the real future.