One over-used Earth

US think tank calculates extent of human resource consumption Humanity is over-using the Earth’s natural resources by 15%. On average. China lives sustainably, but the UK overdoes it by 250% - and the US is twice as bad. Those are some of the blunt warnings in the new Footprint of Nations report by the respected US think tank Redefining Progress, which produces an annual calculation of the ecological footprints of 130 countries. It measures the land area required to provide for a nation’s basic needs and absorb its wastes, then measures six human consumption factors - energy use, grazing land, pastureland, fisheries, built land and forests. The UK’s footprint was 4.72 hectares per person, slightly better than the previous year’s result of 4.8 hectares, and ranking it the 21st most profligate of the nations surveyed. Unsurprisingly, the US registered the world’s largest ecological footprint at 9.57 hectares per person. To be sustainable, the report claims, each American’s footprint should be 1.88 hectares - the figure you get if you divide the total usable land in the world by every person on Earth. China, the world’s most populous nation, had a footprint of only 1.35 hectares per person. Through excessive consumption of non-renewable resources, say the authors, “a handful of countries are depleting global reserves faster than ever before”. Worse, wealthy nations are expanding their economies by exploiting the resources of impoverished neighbours. “This measure speaks for those with the least power in today’s world: children, the poor, the environment, and future generations,” said Michel Gelobter, executive director of Redefining Progress. “These are groups with little or no voice in the political system or the economy, but whose resources are being compromised.” Usefully, the report does not use these depressing statistics merely to conclude that we’re all doomed. On the contrary, it makes the powerful point that the ecological impact of industrialised countries such as the UK and US is due largely to fossil fuel consumption - so shifting to renewable energy can dramatically lessen their footprint. - Polly Ghazi