Last Chance to Change Our Behaviour
David Hillyard -
More than half of the world’s fisheries are fully exploited, putting 27 million jobs and $100bn of income at risk, UN data shows.
One sixth of the world’s population relies on fish as their main or sole source of animal protein.
Yet despite considerable effort by many groups, unsustainable fishing continues apace on a global scale.
The Amazon rainforest pumps 20 billion tonnes of water into the atmosphere each day, which drives global weather patterns and rainfall essential for people’s survival.
Yet we continue to lose tropical forest cover and with that the services it provides, not least in the mitigation of droughts around the world.
However far removed from nature the human race may seem, we are inextricably linked to it.
The Earth’s natural systems provide many essential goods and services that ensure our survival and enhance our lifestyles and well-being – such as food, medicines, building materials, climate regulation, flood defence and leisure opportunities.
The ecosystems that provide these services are rapidly decaying to the point of collapse. Human-induced climate change, infrastructure development, the loss of forests and agricultural production are primary drivers of these losses.
The prevailing economic model that exacerbates these problems, rather than counteracts them, is fundamentally flawed.
“GDP is unfit to reflect many of today’s challenges, such as climate change, public health, education and the environment,” was the conclusion of Beyond GDP, an international conference on gross domestic product held in Brussels in November 2007.
Despite this recognition, governments have spent trillions of dollars around the world in the past year to get out of “recession” and get back to GDP growth at any cost, it seems.
Why? It seems as if the main goal is simply to maintain the current ailing market system and stimulate continued unsustainable consumption.
Continue Reading at … news.bbc.co.uk
Thanks to Network News contributer Peter Deppisch
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Posted by Peter Deppisch
on Sep 23 2009. Filed under International.
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