We watch China's development in awe, and even use their activities to excuse our own climate change paralysis, but it's we who are driving their growth.

Click for full version Source: Global Footprint Network

Experts tell us that every year since the 1980s, the world, as a whole, has gone into ecological debt. In other words, our consumption has overtaken the capacity of the earth to support us, and, more to the point, we are moving further into the red with every passing year.

Ecological Debt Day this year is three days earlier than in 2006 which itself was three days earlier than in 2005. NEF said the date had moved steadily backwards every year since humanity began living beyond its environmental means in the 1980s. - Reuters

This year 'Ecological Debt Day', for the entire planet, arrived a few days ago, on October sixth. With three months of the year remaining, and having by October sixth already used up our year's quota of renewable global resources, to now instead begin eating into our planet's 'capital', this roughly equates to a globally averaged ecological overshoot of 30% for 2007.

An ecological overshoot of 30% means that it takes over one year and three months for the Earth to regenerate what is being used by people in one year. This overshoot accumulates over time to create a global ecological debt.

We currently maintain this overshoot by liquidating the planet’s natural resources. For example we can cut trees faster than they re-grow, and catch fish at a rate faster than they repopulate. While this can be done for a short while, overshoot ultimately leads to the depletion of resources on which our economy depends. - Global Footprint Network

Now, where it gets really scary is when you break this down to the national level, and consider growth curves within individual nations.

If everyone in the world had the same consumption rates as in the United States it would take 5.3 planet earths to support them, NEF said, noting that the figure was 3.1 for France and Britain, 3.0 for Spain, 2.5 for Germany and 2.4 for Japan. - Reuters

Or, put another way, the only reason our ecological overshoot, globally, isn't far higher than 30% is that the majority of the world's population live far simpler lives than those in western nations. If the whole world attained to a U.S. lifestyle, for example, the overshoot would be over 500%.

But if everyone emulated China, which is building a coal-fired power station every five days to feed its booming economy, it would take only 0.9 of a planet. - Reuters

China, India and other countries in Asia, South America and Africa, etc., have, to date, been a kind of unwitting balance against our excess. Now, however, these 'regional offsets' are vanishing before our eyes - and we're making it happen. Where this gets horribly ironic is that some, notably the Bush administration in the U.S., demand that developing nations make the first move in CO2 reductions, despite the fact that western consumption is the catalyst for the rapid growth in these countries moving from ecological credit towards ecological disaster.

Governments have started to sit up and take heed as global public opinion begins calling for urgent action to tackle what has been described as the biggest threat facing humanity.

But there is still no meeting of minds between the world's biggest carbon polluter, the United States, and booming emitters like China and India; both sides insisting that the other make the first move.

But the NEF report "Chinadependence" noted that Britain among others was understating its carbon emissions because it in effect exported its smokestack industries to China in the 1990s and was now importing products it would have been making itself.

"As China is increasingly attacked because of its rising pollution levels, people overlook two important issues," said Simms. "First, per person, China's greenhouse gas emissions are a fraction of those in Europe and the United States."

"Second, a closer look at trade flows reveals that a large share of China's rising emissions is due to the dependence of the rest of the world on exports from China. - Reuters (emphasis added)

"Every time we hear a government minister talking about climate change, they seem to be drawn towards scapegoating China and its rising emissions," said Nef's policy director Andrew Simms.

"But a big factor in that rise is that China has become the major factory for the western world, so their greenhouse gas emissions are largely driven by higher levels of consumption in the west." - BBC (emphasis added)

Scientists warn us that even if we were, today, to (somehow) suddenly begin living perfectly sustainable lives, we would still see a damaging and dangerous rise in temperatures over the next century - just due to historical polluting. When you consider that almost all of that polluting is from the profligate activities of a few wealthy nations - the smallest percentage of the global population - alarm bells should be going off, and determined action taken. Why? Because, in the last few decades, globalised economics have meant we've now essentially 'hired' millions of workers in poorer nations to help contribute to this destruction - and millions more are lining up to do their part.

Scientific reports over the last six months have been getting increasingly urgent. Not long ago we were told we had a mere ten year window within which to have already seriously downshifted in our energy consumption patterns, or face out-of-control climate change consequences. Today, the world is waking up (literally, and figuratively) to learn that this ten year window may have just vanished before our eyes.

Tim Flannery

"What the report establishes is that the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is already above the threshold that can potentially cause dangerous climate change," Flannery told the broadcaster late Monday. "We are already at great risk of dangerous climate change, that's what these figures say. It's not next year or next decade, it's now."...

"We thought we'd be at that threshold within about a decade, that we had that much time," Flannery said. "I mean, that's beyond the limits of projection, beyond the worst-case scenario as we thought of it in 2001," when the last major IPCC report was issued....

Flannery said that the recent economic boom in China and India has helped to accelerate the levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but strong growth in the developed world has also exacerbated the problem.

"It's a worldwide issue. We've had growing economies everywhere, we're still basing that economic activity on fossil fuels," he said. "The metabolism of that economy is now on a collision course clearly with the metabolism of our planet." - ABC

This revelation is consistent with the rapidly accelerating and record-breaking ice melt observed by alarmed scientists this summer in the arctic.

Concerns over damaging the economy are the major stymie on making the necessary changes. The globalised system has concentrated the bulk of the world's wealth, and its power, into the hands of a very few - the same few who are doing their utmost to maintain the status quo. The people who have the most to lose also happen to be the ones with the greatest power to postpone the inevitable shifts we need to make.

The prioritising of globalised, centralised industry over community and environmental health is setting ourselves up for an exponential increase in emissions and environmental degradation over the next few decades, right at a time when dramatic decreases are the order of the day.

Meanwhile, many environmentalists look at band-aid treatments to our present predicament. We seek to substitute coal-fired power plants with wind- and wave-farms, for example. But replacing eons of accumulated fossil fuel energy by these means is arguably an impossible task, at present rates of energy consumption, and some of the band-aids are positively destructive on their own account, like food-for-fuel biofuels. But few take into account that given our present rate of population growth, and the further integration of developing economies into the global market, these noble efforts merely minimise increases, rather than become net subtractions from our ecological deficit. In simple terms, it's one step forward and two steps backwards.

The first hard truth is the acceleration of global energy demand. By 2050, the world's population could reach more than nine billion, compared with today's 6.6 billion.

Energy demand is growing even faster than population growth. Developing countries, China and India in particular, are entering the energy-intensive phase of their development where people buy their first computer or car.

To illustrate the speed of change, there are 40 million cars in China - that's three for every 100 people. By 2020, forecasts suggest that figure will grow to 150 million. Fuelling these cars will require an additional two-to-three million barrels of oil per day - the equivalent of Germany's current consumption. - BBC (emphasis added)

It is subterfuge to continue advocating mere technological fixes, and sales of 'eco-junk', in the face of exponential growth in population and energy consumption. These are industry-oriented 'solutions' that are, in essense, mere placebos. Instead, we need to seriously examine our whole economic model and make substantial adjustments. Arguably the biggest change that can be made, and one that also has a multitude of associated benefits for the majority, is to begin a concerted move towards relocalisation - where we keep production as close as possible to the point of consumption. You may begin to understand where I'm coming from when you consider the following economic absurdities:

During 2006, the UK exported 15,845 tonnes of chocolate-covered waffles and wafers, but imported 14,137 tonnes.

During the same period, 20 tonnes of mineral water were exported by the UK to Australia, while the UK imported 21 tonnes. And thirty-four tonnes of vacuum cleaners went from the UK to Canada, with 47 tonnes travelling the other way. - BBC

There is little merit to the argument that all this food transport simply enables people to consume fruit, vegetables and other foods unavailable from nearby sources. In 1996, for instance, Britain exported 47 million kilogrammes of butter, while importing an almost identical amount, 49 million kg. The situation is almost as bad for milk: of the 173 million litres of milk Britain imported, a large portion was unnecessary, since 111 million litres were also exported. Figures are similar for other commodities, and for other countries. For the most part, this excessive transport benefits only a few large-scale agribusinesses and speculators, which take advantage of government subsidies, exchange-rate swings and price differentials to shift foods from country to country in search of the highest profits. Although proponents of ‘free’ trade argue that fleets of cargo ships, trucks and planes carrying the same commodities in opposite directions somehow leads to economic efficiency, the current system is, by any reasonable measure, absurdly inefficient. As economist Herman Daly has pointed out: ‘Americans import Danish sugar cookies, and Danes import American sugar cookies. Exchanging recipes would surely be more efficient. - From the Ground Up, Rethinking Industrial Agriculture (Helena Norberg-Hodge, Peter Goering, John Page) p.xix

These are just a few examples on one aspect of an economic system run amuck. The exasperating thing is the Average Joe, whether he lives in Beijing or London or New York, doesn't benefit from the globalised economic system - and it's not making him happier.

Cashing in on our future by ignoring resource limits and over-consuming is an incredibly profitable business. This is what makes it so hard to give up. But, as the native American proverb goes, “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” We are in serious debt to our children already, and if we don't turn this around, we, and they, will be battling extremes of weather and a chain reaction of associated consequences. Most of us in the west spend our lives striving for 'financial security' - wealth is the modern measure of happiness - but this predisposition is based on the premise that our world will continue as it always has. For myself, as a husband, father and potential grandfather, I'm increasingly feeling the need to change my priorities, and to aim instead at a state of 'sustainable independence'. I hope you will too.