The stark warning comes from the renowned Worldwatch Institute, a Washington-based organisation regarded as the world's pre-eminent environmental think tank.

Its State of the World 2010 report published this week outlines a blueprint for changing our entire way of life.

"Preventing the collapse of human civilisation requires nothing less than a wholesale transformation of dominant cultural patterns. This transformation would reject consumerism... and establish in its place a new cultural framework centred on sustainability," states the report.

"Habits that are firmly set – from where people live to what they eat – will all need to be altered and in many cases simplified or minimised... From Earth's perspective, the American or even the European way of life is simply not viable."

Nobel prize winner and microfinance expert Muhammad Yunus, writing in the foreword, describes the report as calling for "one of the greatest cultural shifts imaginable: from cultures of consumerism to cultures of sustainability".

Almost seven billion people are demanding ever greater quantities of material resources, decimating the world's richest ecosystems, and dumping billions of tons of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.

And any actions taken by governments, or scientific advances to deal with climate change, are doomed to failure unless individuals get back to a basic way of life, concludes the report – which recommends things like borrowing books and toys from libraries instead of buying them, choosing public transport over the car, and growing food in community gardens. In addition, all products should be designed to last a lifetime and be completely recyclable ...

Independent  10 Jan 2010

Two concurrent reports illustrate the dilemma we all face. The Times reported the threats to ...

... Joe Plumber and every American who objects to $3 gasoline ...

It ends by telling us that ...

... the big issue for Mr Obama is not safety but energy. He will set out his aims — clean, safe energy — but he knows, deep down, that there is no such prize.

That's self-evidently true, as the blocking of the Gulf oil spill confirmed. Quite how such spillages keep gasoline below $3 is not explained.

However, the BBC report - of the same date - raises the bigger issue of threats to biodiversity.

It's easy, of course, in a world where most of us no longer have much contact with nature - apart from the weather and the odd volcanic eruption - to lose site of the fact that we are not onlookers standing outside biodiversity, but intimately - to slightly misuse John Donne's phrase - 'a part of the maine'.

The relationship between nature loss and economic harm is much more than just figurative, the UN believes.

An ongoing project known as The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity is attempting to quantify the monetary value of various services that nature provides for us, such as purifying water and air, protecting coasts from storms and maintaining wildlife for ecotourism ...

TEEB has already calculated the annual loss of forests at $2-5 trillion, dwarfing costs of the banking crisis ...

"Humanity has fabricated the illusion that somehow we can get by without biodiversity, or that it is somehow peripheral to our contemporary world: the truth is we need it more than ever on a planet of six billion heading to over nine billion people by 2050."

Like the rest of us, some time this century 'Joe Plumber' will have to face up to the fact that we should only extract from the planet that which can be renewed, whereas currently what we extract is that which cannot be renewed, as 'peak oil' confirms.

In the meantime, the current refusal to come to terms with peak everything will continue the degradation of the biosphere.

NB: The Times 'Tread carefully' report is no longer available to view for free!

Trashing Democracy, Society & the Environment

Alternatives to Fossil Fuels

Make Wealth History

Peak Everything?

Planet Green

Prosperity Without Growth

Prosperity without Growth?

Sustainability and substitution

Trapped in Neoliberalism's Addiction to Growth

New green alliance in savage attack on George Osborne

"Following the chancellor's autumn statement, we can say that the coalition is on a path to becoming the most environmentally destructive government to hold power in this country since the modern environmental movement was born," states one letter, signed by the green campaigners George Monbiot, Tony Juniper, Jonathon Porritt, Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party ...

A second letter, from the heads of the RSPB, Greenpeace and others, says:

"The stunning disregard shown for the value of the natural environment not only flies in the face of popular opinion but goes against everything the government said in June, when it launched two major pieces of environmental policy – the natural environment white paper and the England biodiversity strategy." ...

Gdn  03 Dec 2011

Wanted: more immigrants to boost British economy

George Osborne's economic strategy rests on continued high levels of immigration to Britain ...

If ministers were to succeed in reducing immigration down to their target, the UK's growth would be damaged, the OBR's economists believe – acknowledging the role that immigration plays in Britain's economic health ...

The OBR said: "Our assumption for population growth is based on average net inward migration of 140,000 per annum over the forecast period [2011-16]."

Net migration to the UK in 2010 was 252,000, according to the Office for National Statistics, the highest level on record ...

The OBR has also pointed out that falls in immigration would have economic implications.

Reductions in net immigration would have a negative impact on UK growth ...

Ind  03 Dec 2011    Coalition Log    George Osborne    Global Labour Market
Is the Coalition eco-friendly    Whither Britain? Log

UK population 'to increase to 70 million by 2027'

UK population sees biggest increase in half a century

UN 'concerned' by world population growth trends

Green Politics

Population

Population Matters

How the Eurocrisis laid bare world's new economic order

As the G20's players meet in Cannes, it seems that peak oil, peak coal, peak uranium, 'parched planet', and CO2 emissions are not going to get in the way of a huge economic expansion 'by 2050'. And they say astologers are unemployable!

... the world's leaders should console themselves with the fact that if they get things right, we should all be winners.

Richard Snook, of PwC, says: "It's fair to say that over the next five or six years things are going to be pretty difficult. But over the next 40 years, we are expecting the standard of living to improve a lot."

But he insists the convergence of China and the rest should be good news, because it creates large and growing markets which the old powers should be able to take advantage of.

"This is not a 'decline of the west' story: we're still expecting the European and the US economies to expand by two and a half or three times by 2050," he says.

Lyons agrees. "I don't think the west should be pessimistic," he says.

"We need to be realistic about the near-term: the debt and the need to deleverage point to a difficult couple of years.

"But the west still has the ability to do well."

Obs  30 Oct 2011    Eating the Future Log    

The Anthropcene

Global Green Growth Institute

'Prosperity for Britain'

Prosperity without Growth? - The transition to a sustainable economy

Recession must make us question 'Relentless pursuit of growth'

Towards A Steady-State Economy

The summit’s premise is that the age of heroism is over.

We have entered the age of accomodation. No longer may we live without restraint. No longer may we swing our fists regardless of whose nose might be in the way.

In everything we do we must now be mindful of the lives of others, cautious, constrained, meticulous. We may no longer live in the moment, as if there were no tomorrow.

This is a meeting about chemicals: the greenhouse gases insulating the atmosphere. But it is also a battle between two world views.

The angry men who seek to derail this agreement, and all such limits on their self-fulfilment, have understood this better than we have. A new movement, most visible in North America and Australia, but now apparent everywhere, demands to trample on the lives of others as if this were a human right.

It will not be constrained by taxes, gun laws, regulations, health and safety, especially environmental restraints. It knows that fossil fuels have granted the universal ape amplification beyond its Palaeolithic dreams. For a moment, a marvellous, frontier moment, they allowed us to live in blissful mindlessness.

The angry men know that this golden age has gone; but they cannot find the words for the constraints they hate. Clutching their copies of Atlas Shrugged, they flail around, accusing those who would impede them of communism, fascism, religiosity, misanthropy, but knowing at heart that these restrictions are driven by something far more repulsive to the unrestrained man: the decencies we owe to other human beings ...

Monbiot.com  14 Dec 2009

Can Obama Stop America's Gas-Guzzling Ways?

CEO: Business Lobby Pushing Self-Interest Over Success

Atlas Shrugged

World faces 'perfect storm' of problems by 2030

Food, water and energy shortages will unleash public unrest and international conflict ...

"We head into a perfect storm in 2030, because all of these things are operating on the same time frame," [Professor John] Beddington told the Guardian.

"If we don't address this, we can expect major destabilisation, an increase in rioting and potentially significant problems with international migration, as people move out to avoid food and water shortages," he added.

Food prices for major crops such as wheat and maize have recently settled after a sharp rise last year when production failed to keep up with demand. But according to Beddington, global food reserves are so low – at 14% of annual consumption – a major drought or flood could see prices rapidly escalate again.

The majority of the food reserve is grain that is in transit between shipping ports, he said.

"Our food reserves are at a 50-year low, but by 2030 we need to be producing 50% more food. At the same time, we will need 50% more energy, and 30% more fresh water.

"There are dramatic problems out there, particularly with water and food, but energy also, and they are all intimately connected," Beddington said.

"You can't think about dealing with one without considering the others. We must deal with all of these together." ...

Guardian  18 March 2009    

In a speech to the CBI on Thursday, Brown will underline the depth of the global economic problems, which demand a global response. ...

But Brown will say that Britain is well-placed to weather the downturn:

"In the next 20 years the world economy will double in its size and wealth and we have a great opportunity to win new business, new jobs and prosperity for Britain."

Guardian 01 September 2008   

WWF's Living Planet Report 2006, the group's biennial statement on the state of the natural world, shows that we are currently using the planet's resources far faster than they can be renewed. On current projections, this means that as a whole, humanity will need at least two planets' worth of natural resources by 2050.

In the UK alone, we are currently living a 'three planet lifestyle' and the report indicates that the world's Ecological footprint - the demand people place upon the natural world - has more than tripled since 1961 and that rising carbon dioxide emissions are the biggest cause of our ecological impact on the planet.

The UK has also risen from 15th to 14th place in the world's ecological footprint league table with an increased footprint of 4 per cent to 5.6 global hectares per capita since 2004. This means that each person in the UK uses the equivalent of 6 football pitches worth of natural resources to support their lifestyles. ...

Humanity's over consumption has been increasing year on year since WWF and partners started to collate this report, with demand exceeding supply by about 25 per cent in 2003. This means that it took approximately a year and three months for the Earth to produce the ecological resources we used in that year.

The report has shown that between 1970 and 2003 terrestrial species have declined by 31 per cent, freshwater species by 28 per cent, and marine species by 27 per cent. The Living Planet Report 2006, pulls together various data to compile two indicators of the Earth's well-being.

The first, the Living Planet Index, measures biodiversity, based on trends in more than 3600 populations of 1300 vertebrate species around the world. In all, data for 695 terrestrial, 344 freshwater and 274 marine species were analyzed.

"Jonathan Loh (Zoological Society of London), one of the editors of the report, said "The Living Planet Index is a stark indication of the rapid and ongoing loss of biodiversity worldwide. Populations of species in terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems have declined by more than 30 per cent since 1970, a rate that is unprecedented in human history. In the tropics the declines are even more dramatic, as natural resources are being intensively exploited for human use." ...

WWF 18 October 2006

Living Planet Report .pdf

" ... we conclude from the evidence that growth in the harvest of renewable resources, depletion of non-renewable materials, and filling of the sinks are combining slowly and inexorably to raise the amount of energy and capital required to sustain the quantity and quality of material flows required by the economy.

"Those costs arise from a combination of physical, environmental, and social factors. Eventually they will be high enough that growth in industry can no longer be sustained. When that happens, the positive feedback loop that produced expansion in the material economy will reverse direction; the economy will begin to contract.

1. For a renewable resource: soil, water, forest, fish;
   The rate of use = the rate of regeneration.



2. For a non-renewable resource: fossil fuel, high-grade mineral ores, fossil groundwater;
   
   The sustainable rate of use can be no greater than the rate at which a sustainable renewable resource can be substituted for it.



3. For a pollutant the sustainable rate of emission can be no greater than the rate at which that pollutant can be recycled, absorbed, and rendered harmless in the sink.

1. The Runaway Train.

   If civilization is to survive it must live on the interest, not the capital, of nature. Ecological markers suggest that in the early 1960s, humans were using about 70 per cent of the nature's yearly output ... in 1999, we were at 125 per cent ... Such numbers ... mark the road to bankruptcy.

2. The Dinosaur.

   ... our present behaviour is typical of failed societies at the zenith of their greed and arrogance. This is the dinosaur factor: hostility to change from vested interests, and inertia at all social levels ... The idea that the world must be run by the stock market is as mad as any other fundamentalist delusion, Islamic, Christian, or Marxist.

3. The House of Cards.

   Civilisations often fall quite suddenly ... because they reach full demand on their ecologies, they become highly vulnerable to natural fluctuations. ... Droughts, floods, fires, and hurricanes are rising in frequency and severity. The pollution surges caused by these - and wars - add to the gyre of destruction.
   
   The most compelling reason for reforming our system is that the system is in no one's interest. It is a suicide machine.

"Greed really has become a part of America’s value system.

"Get as much as you can, while you can, and don’t worry about the other guy.

"Corporate greed often exploits the poor for greater profits.

"Political greed makes promises never meant to be kept in order to achieve position.

"Personal greed sets us free from a sense of responsibility to the community, and establishes love of self as the greatest commandment."

Joe Thorn.net

... Josef Fritzl represents merely the most extreme form of a very common philosophy of life: I will do what makes me happy, and if that causes others to suffer, hard luck ...

Diocese of Lichfield  30 May 2008