Natural Resource Management class: Pressnote

Below you can find a pressnote Silje and I wrote based on the WWF Living Planet Report. We wrote two considering different styles of writing and different audiences, so the one you will be reading now is in line with mass media directed at the general public (so a little bit of sensationalism) I hope you get the message!

NEWS: Americans need 4 times the biocapacity of everybody else!

Living on credit, but for how much longer?

Madrid, 26.01.2013

Silje G. Hassel & Julia Senninger

It’s been confirmed: If we all lived like the average American, a total of 4 earths would be necessary in order to regenerate what we demand from nature. Others, it seems, are less needy: Argentineans require ‘only’ 1.5 worlds, while the average Indonesian can make do with two-thirds of everybody else.

The evidence can be found in WWF’s latest report Living Planet. But this is not new, according to the WWF: “Since the 1970s, the ‘ecological overshoot’ has continued to grow over the years, reaching 50 per cent deficit in 2008.”

We are living on credit […]

covering ourselves with riches we don’t have,

to pursue wealth we don’t need.

We are overusing the world’s resources to such an extent, that it takes 1.5 years for the earth to rebuild the resources we take from her, every year.

“How can this be possible when there is only one Earth?” a distressed member from the WWF exclaims.

But are individuals the only ones responsible for this? Different countries have different footprints, but this is not only because of individual choices.

Governments and business are just as guilty. They are the ones who decide how much land is built-up, or how electricity is produced, or even our food.

That’s why they have the responsibility to reduce our individual footprints! The world’s population is growing, we consume more stuff and food, and so the biocapacity is in serious threat. If we cannot limit our impact on the world, and continue living on credit, we will soon face a crisis much bigger than the 2008 financial one.

For now, CO2 is the only waste product currently traced, but there are other factors, such as water use, (or the amount of dirty water) that influences the state of biocapacity, but which are not directly included in the Ecological Footprint calculations.

Too high amounts of Co2 lead to higher global temperatures, climate change and ocean level rise, to name just a few. But there are many other areas that need serious to be dealth with.

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