By Thalif Deen Reprint |

The Earth’s capacity to meet human needs is finite, and depends on lifestyle choices and associated consumption. Credit: John Snape/CC BY 2.0
UNITED NATIONS, May 1 2012 (IPS) – Just before the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, some of the industrial nations, and specifically the United States, were lambasted for their obscenely high consumption of the world’s finite resources, including food, water and energy.
The world was being gradually destroyed, environmentalists warned, by unsustainable consumption.
Hitting back at critics, then U.S. president George H.W. Bush famously declared: “The American way of life is not up for negotiations. Period.”
The message, a pre-emptive diplomatic strike by the United States, reverberated throughout the summit of world leaders, whose plan of action for the 21st century virtually skirted the hot political issue.
Now, 20 years later, the United Nations will once again focus on population, consumption and the environment at the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development (also known as Rio+20) in mid-June in Brazil.
The upcoming summit will adopt a new plan of action for a greener economy and a sustainable future.
A new 134-page study, released on the eve of the summit, and titled “People and the Planet“, highlights the rapid and widespread changes in the world’s population and the unprecedented levels of consumption that are threatening the well being of the planet.
Authored by the Royal Society, a 352-year-old institution described as a fellowship of the world’s most eminent scientists, the study says the Earth’s capacity to meet human needs is finite.
But how the limits are approached depends on lifestyle choices and associated consumption – and these depend on what is used, and how, and what is regarded as essential for human wellbeing.
The members of the Royal Society’s glorious past include some of the world’s illustrious scientists and thinkers of a bygone era, the likes of Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, James Watson and Albert Einstein.
Presenting the report on behalf of the Royal Society, Nobel Laureate Sir John Sulston told reporters Tuesday there is a strong link between population, consumption and the environment.
The unsustainable consumption of the world’s most developed and emerging economies must be urgently reduced, he said.
A child born in the developed world, he pointed out, consumes 30 to 50 times as much water as one born in the developing world.
….(read more).
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
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