Friday, April 29, 2016

Good morning,

Do you recycle? Do you conserve water? Have you reduced your consumption of meat? Have you written your congressperson demanding energy alternatives? It may sound cruel, but if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.

And what is the problem?

According to the new, 2012 Living Planet Report, produced by the World Wildlife Fund, humanity is outstripping the Earth's resources by 50 percent essentially using the resources of one and a half Earths every year.

Please scroll down for more.

Thanks for reading,

Your Living Green editor

Email the Editor

***
The world's biodiversity is down 30 percent since the 1970s, according to a new report, with tropical species taking the biggest hit. And if humanity continues as it has been, the picture could get bleaker.

Colby Loucks, the director of conservation sciences at WWF, compared humanity to bad houseguests.

"We're emptying the fridge, we're not really taking care of the lawn, we're not weeding the flower beds and we're certainly not taking out the garbage," Loucks said.

But humanity is essentially in debt to Mother Earth, conservationists find. As of 2008, the most recent year for which data is available, humans were outstripping Earth's biocapacity by 50 percent.

Biocapacity is the amount of renewable resources, land, and waste absorption (such as sinks for carbon dioxide) the Earth can provide. In other words, it takes the planet 1.5 years to restore what humanity burns through in a year.