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After 5 years of watching Buxh rule like there's no tomorrow...

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JohnnyRingo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-06-05 09:50 PM
Original message
After 5 years of watching Buxh rule like there's no tomorrow...

I read that tomorrow may be cancelled anyway:
___________________________________________________________________
Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up'

The human race is living beyond its means. A report backed by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries - some of them world leaders in their fields - today warns that the almost two-thirds of the natural machinery that supports life on Earth is being degraded by human pressure.

The study contains what its authors call "a stark warning" for the entire world. The wetlands, forests, savannahs, estuaries, coastal fisheries and other habitats that recycle air, water and nutrients for all living creatures are being irretrievably damaged. In effect, one species is now a hazard to the other 10 million or so on the planet, and to itself.

<snip>
In 1997, a team of biologists and economists tried to put a value on the "business services" provided by nature - the free pollination of crops, the air conditioning provided by wild plants, the recycling of nutrients by the oceans. They came up with an estimate of $33 trillion, almost twice the global gross national product for that year. But after what today's report, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, calls "an unprecedented period of spending Earth's natural bounty" it was time to check the accounts.

"That is what this assessment has done, and it is a sobering statement with much more red than black on the balance sheet," the scientists warn. "In many cases, it is literally a matter of living on borrowed time. By using up supplies of fresh groundwater faster than they can be recharged, for example, we are depleting assets at the expense of our children."

Flow from rivers has been reduced dramatically. For parts of the year, the Yellow River in China, the Nile in Africa and the Colorado in North America dry up before they reach the ocean. An estimated 90% of the total weight of the ocean's large predators - tuna, swordfish and sharks - has disappeared in recent years. An estimated 12% of bird species, 25% of mammals and more than 30% of all amphibians are threatened with extinction within the next century. Some of them are threatened by invaders.



Details of the study Here: (Good short article)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1447921,00.html
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Stirk Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-06-05 09:58 PM
Response to Original message
1. No problem for me. I've prepared.
Edited on Wed Apr-06-05 10:00 PM by Stirk
Saved my old football shoulder pads.

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Tux Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-06-05 09:58 PM
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2. We're
Killing all life and we worry about stock options. Not the way I'd want my species to be remembered by as aliens dig around our ruins.
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moof Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-06-05 09:59 PM
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3. species that change their environment go extinct
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