{"id":9718,"date":"2015-07-04T08:56:34","date_gmt":"2015-07-04T13:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=9718"},"modified":"2015-07-04T08:56:34","modified_gmt":"2015-07-04T13:56:34","slug":"if-everyone-lived-in-an-ecovillage-the-earth-would-still-be-in-trouble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=9718","title":{"rendered":"If everyone lived in an \u2018ecovillage\u2019, the Earth would still be in trouble"},"content":{"rendered":"

If everyone lived in an \u2018ecovillage\u2019, the Earth would still be in\u00a0trouble<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n

We are used to hearing that if everyone lived in the same way as North Americans or Australians, we would need\u00a0four or five planet Earths<\/a>\u00a0to sustain us.<\/p>\n

This sort of analysis is known as the \u201cecological footprint\u201d and shows that even the so-called \u201cgreen\u201d western European nations, with their more progressive approaches to renewable energy, energy efficiency and public transport, would require more than three planets.<\/p>\n

How can we live within the means of our planet? When we delve seriously into this question it becomes clear that almost all environmental literature grossly underestimates what is needed for our civilisation to become sustainable.<\/p>\n

Only the brave should read on.<\/p>\n

The \u2018ecological footprint\u2019 analysis<\/h2>\n

In order to explore the question of what \u201cone planet living\u201d would look like, let us turn to what is arguably the world\u2019s most prominent metric for environmental accounting \u2013 the ecological footprint analysis. This was developed by\u00a0Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees<\/a>, then at the University of British Columbia, and is now institutionalised by the scientific body,\u00a0The Global Footprint Network<\/a>, of which Wackernagel is president.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0method<\/a>\u00a0of environmental accounting attempts to measure the amount of productive land and water a given population has available to it, and then evaluates the demands that population makes upon those ecosystems. A sustainable society is one that operates within the carrying capacity of its dependent ecosystems.<\/p>\n

While this form of accounting is not without its critics \u2013 it is certainly not an exact science \u2013 the worrying thing is that many of its\u00a0critics<\/a>\u00a0actually claim that it underestimates humanity\u2019s environmental impact. Even Wackernagel, the concept\u2019s co-originator, is convinced the numbers are\u00a0underestimates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to the most\u00a0recent data<\/a>\u00a0from the Global Footprint Network, humanity as a whole is currently in ecological overshoot, demanding one and a half planet\u2019s worth of Earth\u2019s biocapacity. As the global population continues its trend toward\u00a011 billion<\/a>\u00a0people, and while the\u00a0growth fetish<\/a>continues to shape the global economy, the extent of overshoot is only going to increase.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If everyone lived in an \u2018ecovillage\u2019, the Earth would still be in\u00a0trouble We are used to hearing that if everyone lived in the same way as North Americans or Australians, we would need\u00a0four or five planet Earths\u00a0to sustain us. This sort of analysis is known as the \u201cecological footprint\u201d and shows that even the so-called […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[6989,150,6720,6987,6988,3197,769],"class_list":["post-9718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-survival-2","tag-biocapacity","tag-collapse","tag-ecological-footprint","tag-ecovillage","tag-global-footprint-network","tag-overshoot","tag-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9719,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718\/revisions\/9719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}