Earlier this month President Obama met with members of the Group of 20, the informal forum that promotes open and constructive discussion between industrial and emerging-market countries on key global issues. He hoped to reach a consensus on the environmental crisis facing the world. The results were disappointing as developing countries, led by China, India, Brazil and Mexico, insisted that because advanced countries over time produced the bulk of harmful emissions, their climb out of poverty should not be halted to fix the damages done by industrialized countries. While the US House of representatives passed the Waxman-Markey Global Warming Bill, the Senate has delayed further discussion on a similar bill until September. In reality, given strong opposition by business interests to the cap and trade provision along with other provisions, it is questionable that the United States will even be able to meet the only solid goal that was achieved in the G20 meeting, an agreement to limit the rise of global temperatures to no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. The developing countries refused to agree to the draft agreement to reduce worldwide emissions by 50 percent, with industrial countries cutting their emissions by 80 percent.
But even that would not be enough to overcome the damages already done to the environment. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggested that industrial economies would have to reduce emissions 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to keep warming to 2 degrees. Waxman-Markey caps emissions at only 3.6 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, pitifully short of what the scientists have said is necessary.
From the standpoint of the rest of the world, particularly developing nations, the United States is the country most responsible for the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere today.
Furthermore, a growing body of research and evidence indicates the problem is much broader than global warming, which is only one indicator of the problem. The Ecological Footprint measures how much land and water area a human population requires to produce the resource it consumes and to absorb its wastes, using prevailing technology. Carbon emissions from fossil fuels is the most important problem, representing about 50 percent of the ecological footprint. But the impact of urban development (built-up land), de-forestation caused by timber and pulp tree harvesting, the steady destruction of crop and pasturelands and the depletion of fishery resources, contribute the other half.
The latest assessment by The Living Planet Report 2008 concluded: “Since the mid 1980s, humanity has been in ecological overshoot with annual demand on resources exceeding what Earth can regenerate each year. Today humanity uses the equivalent of 1.3 planets to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste. This means it now takes the Earth one year and four months to regenerate what we use in a year.We maintain this overshoot by liquidating the Earth’s resources. Overshoot is a vastly underestimated threat to human well-being and the health of the planet, and one that is not adequately addressed.”
Moderate UN scenarios suggest that if current population and consumption trends continue, by the mid 2030s we will need the equivalent of two Earths to support us. And of course, we only have one.
It is sad that the United States, the poster child for economic prosperity, ranks 114 out of 143 countries in the Happy Planet Index, yet we are the country with by far the largest ecological footprint.
Superior Green Building Systems addresses at least two of the five components in the ecological footprint. By making efficient use of local renewable materials instead of wood, precious trees are protected, while reducing carbon emissions associated with transportation of wood products over long distances. In addition, the main construction materials used in the innovative system have a much higher insulating capacity than wood products and other materials used in traditional construction methods.
