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The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Done
croxis
I am the walrus
in Zocalo v2.0
[url]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4391835.stm[/url]
[quote]The most comprehensive survey ever into the state of the planet concludes that human activities threaten the Earth's ability to sustain future generations.
The report says the way society obtains its resources has caused irreversible changes that are degrading the natural processes that support life on Earth.
This will compromise efforts to address hunger, poverty and improve healthcare.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was drawn up by 1,300 researchers from 95 nations over a period of four years.
This report is essentially an audit of nature's economy, and the audit shows we've driven most of the accounts into the red
Jonathan Lash, World Resources Institute
It reports that humans have changed most ecosystems beyond recognition in a dramatically short space of time.
The way society has sourced its food, fresh water, timber, fibre and fuel over the past 50 years has seriously degraded the environment, the assessment (MA) concludes.
And the current state of affairs is likely to be a road block to the Millennium Development Goals agreed to by world leaders at the United Nations in 2000, it says.
"Any progress achieved in addressing the goals of poverty and hunger eradication, improved health, and environmental protection is unlikely to be sustained if most of the ecosystem 'services' on which humanity relies continue to be degraded," the report states.
"This report is essentially an audit of nature's economy, and the audit shows we've driven most of the accounts into the red," commented Jonathan Lash, the president of the World Resources Institute.
"If you drive the economy into the red, ultimately there are significant consequences for our capacity to achieve our dreams in terms of poverty reduction and prosperity."
Way forward
The MA is slightly different to all previous environmental reports in that it defines ecosystems in terms of the "services", or benefits, that people get from them - timber for building; clean air to breathe; fish for food; fibres to make clothes.
The study finds the requirements of a burgeoning world population after WW II drove an unsustainable rush for these natural resources.
Although humanity has made considerable gains in the process - economies and food production have continued to grow - the way these successes have been achieved puts at risk global prosperity in the future.
"When we look at the drivers of change affecting ecosystems, we see that, across the board, the drivers are either staying steady or increasing in severity - habitat change, climate change, invasive species, overexploitation of resources; and pollution, such as nitrogen and phosphorus," said Dr William Reid, the director of the MA.
More land was converted to agriculture since 1945 than in the 18th and 19th Centuries combined. More than half of all the synthetic nitrogen fertilisers - first made in 1913 - ever used on the planet were deployed after 1985.
The MA authors say the pressure for resources has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth, with some 10-30% of the mammal, bird and amphibian species currently threatened with extinction.
The report says only four ecosystem services have been enhanced in the last 50 years: increases in crop, livestock and aquaculture production, and increased carbon sequestration for global climate regulation (which has come from new forests planted in the Northern Hemisphere).
Two services - fisheries and fresh water - are said now to be well beyond levels that can sustain current, much less future, demands.
Global value
The assessment runs to 2,500 pages and is intended to inform global policy initiatives. In many ways, it mirrors the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which, by bringing together hundreds of scientists in a peer-reviewed process, has driven efforts to slow global warming.
"The MA is a very powerful consensus about the unsustainable trajectory that most of the world's ecosystems are now on."
"There will undoubtedly be gainsayers, as there are with the IPCC; but I put them in the same box as the flat-Earthers and the people who believe smoking doesn't cause cancer," said Professor Sir John Lawton, former chief executive of the UK's Natural Environment Research Council.
The report is not all doom and gloom. Modelling of future scenarios suggests human societies can ease the strains being put on nature, while continuing to use them to raise living standards.
At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning
Statement by MA board (1.47MB)
Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Download and install the reader here
But it requires, says the MA, changes in consumption patterns, better education, new technologies and higher prices for exploiting ecosystems.
Some of the solutions go to old but as yet unfulfilled initiatives, such as the abolition of production subsidies which imbalance world trade and in agriculture are blamed for overloading land with fertilisers and pesticides as farmers chase high yields.
Newer solutions centre on putting a value on "externalities" that are currently deemed to be "free" - airlines do not pay for the carbon dioxide they put into the atmosphere; and the price of food does not reflect the cost of cleaning waterways that have been polluted by run-off of agrochemicals from the land.
In future, these areas could be constrained by markets that trade permits - as in Europe's newly established carbon emissions market.
Technology's role, the MA says, will be keenly felt in the field of renewable energies.
But the pace of change needs to quicken, the report warns. Angela Cropper, the co-chair of the MA assessment panel, added: "The range of current responses are not commensurate with the nature, the extent or the urgency of the situation that is at hand.
"In our scenarios, we see that with interventions that are strategic, targeted, and more fundamental in nature - we can realise some of the desired outcomes and they can have positive results for ecosystems, their services and human well-being."
The MA has cost some $20m to put together. It was funded by the Global Environment Facility, the United Nations Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the World Bank and others. [/quote]
Exerps from the block
[quote] There will undoubtedly be gainsayers, as there are with the IPCC; but I put them in the same box as the flat-Earthers and the people who believe smoking doesn't cause cancer
Prof Sir John Lawton [/quote]
[quote] MA - ASSESSMENT OVERVIEW
Humans have radically altered ecosystems in just 50 years
Changes have brought gains but at high ecosystem cost
Further unsustainable practices will threaten development goals
Workable solutions will require significant changes in policy [/quote]
[quote]
PLANET UNDER PRESSURE
60% of world ecosystem services have been degraded
Of 24 evaluated ecosystems, 15 are being damaged
About 20% of corals were lost in just 20 years; 20% degraded
Nutrient pollution has led to eutrophication of waters and coastal dead zones
Species extinction is now 100-1,000 times above the normal background rate [/quote]
[url]http://millenniumassessment.org[/url]
[quote]The most comprehensive survey ever into the state of the planet concludes that human activities threaten the Earth's ability to sustain future generations.
The report says the way society obtains its resources has caused irreversible changes that are degrading the natural processes that support life on Earth.
This will compromise efforts to address hunger, poverty and improve healthcare.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was drawn up by 1,300 researchers from 95 nations over a period of four years.
This report is essentially an audit of nature's economy, and the audit shows we've driven most of the accounts into the red
Jonathan Lash, World Resources Institute
It reports that humans have changed most ecosystems beyond recognition in a dramatically short space of time.
The way society has sourced its food, fresh water, timber, fibre and fuel over the past 50 years has seriously degraded the environment, the assessment (MA) concludes.
And the current state of affairs is likely to be a road block to the Millennium Development Goals agreed to by world leaders at the United Nations in 2000, it says.
"Any progress achieved in addressing the goals of poverty and hunger eradication, improved health, and environmental protection is unlikely to be sustained if most of the ecosystem 'services' on which humanity relies continue to be degraded," the report states.
"This report is essentially an audit of nature's economy, and the audit shows we've driven most of the accounts into the red," commented Jonathan Lash, the president of the World Resources Institute.
"If you drive the economy into the red, ultimately there are significant consequences for our capacity to achieve our dreams in terms of poverty reduction and prosperity."
Way forward
The MA is slightly different to all previous environmental reports in that it defines ecosystems in terms of the "services", or benefits, that people get from them - timber for building; clean air to breathe; fish for food; fibres to make clothes.
The study finds the requirements of a burgeoning world population after WW II drove an unsustainable rush for these natural resources.
Although humanity has made considerable gains in the process - economies and food production have continued to grow - the way these successes have been achieved puts at risk global prosperity in the future.
"When we look at the drivers of change affecting ecosystems, we see that, across the board, the drivers are either staying steady or increasing in severity - habitat change, climate change, invasive species, overexploitation of resources; and pollution, such as nitrogen and phosphorus," said Dr William Reid, the director of the MA.
More land was converted to agriculture since 1945 than in the 18th and 19th Centuries combined. More than half of all the synthetic nitrogen fertilisers - first made in 1913 - ever used on the planet were deployed after 1985.
The MA authors say the pressure for resources has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth, with some 10-30% of the mammal, bird and amphibian species currently threatened with extinction.
The report says only four ecosystem services have been enhanced in the last 50 years: increases in crop, livestock and aquaculture production, and increased carbon sequestration for global climate regulation (which has come from new forests planted in the Northern Hemisphere).
Two services - fisheries and fresh water - are said now to be well beyond levels that can sustain current, much less future, demands.
Global value
The assessment runs to 2,500 pages and is intended to inform global policy initiatives. In many ways, it mirrors the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which, by bringing together hundreds of scientists in a peer-reviewed process, has driven efforts to slow global warming.
"The MA is a very powerful consensus about the unsustainable trajectory that most of the world's ecosystems are now on."
"There will undoubtedly be gainsayers, as there are with the IPCC; but I put them in the same box as the flat-Earthers and the people who believe smoking doesn't cause cancer," said Professor Sir John Lawton, former chief executive of the UK's Natural Environment Research Council.
The report is not all doom and gloom. Modelling of future scenarios suggests human societies can ease the strains being put on nature, while continuing to use them to raise living standards.
At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning
Statement by MA board (1.47MB)
Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Download and install the reader here
But it requires, says the MA, changes in consumption patterns, better education, new technologies and higher prices for exploiting ecosystems.
Some of the solutions go to old but as yet unfulfilled initiatives, such as the abolition of production subsidies which imbalance world trade and in agriculture are blamed for overloading land with fertilisers and pesticides as farmers chase high yields.
Newer solutions centre on putting a value on "externalities" that are currently deemed to be "free" - airlines do not pay for the carbon dioxide they put into the atmosphere; and the price of food does not reflect the cost of cleaning waterways that have been polluted by run-off of agrochemicals from the land.
In future, these areas could be constrained by markets that trade permits - as in Europe's newly established carbon emissions market.
Technology's role, the MA says, will be keenly felt in the field of renewable energies.
But the pace of change needs to quicken, the report warns. Angela Cropper, the co-chair of the MA assessment panel, added: "The range of current responses are not commensurate with the nature, the extent or the urgency of the situation that is at hand.
"In our scenarios, we see that with interventions that are strategic, targeted, and more fundamental in nature - we can realise some of the desired outcomes and they can have positive results for ecosystems, their services and human well-being."
The MA has cost some $20m to put together. It was funded by the Global Environment Facility, the United Nations Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the World Bank and others. [/quote]
Exerps from the block
[quote] There will undoubtedly be gainsayers, as there are with the IPCC; but I put them in the same box as the flat-Earthers and the people who believe smoking doesn't cause cancer
Prof Sir John Lawton [/quote]
[quote] MA - ASSESSMENT OVERVIEW
Humans have radically altered ecosystems in just 50 years
Changes have brought gains but at high ecosystem cost
Further unsustainable practices will threaten development goals
Workable solutions will require significant changes in policy [/quote]
[quote]
PLANET UNDER PRESSURE
60% of world ecosystem services have been degraded
Of 24 evaluated ecosystems, 15 are being damaged
About 20% of corals were lost in just 20 years; 20% degraded
Nutrient pollution has led to eutrophication of waters and coastal dead zones
Species extinction is now 100-1,000 times above the normal background rate [/quote]
[url]http://millenniumassessment.org[/url]
Comments
i for one trust our leaders to do absolutely nothing about this except bicker about who's fault it is
And neither is it "state secret" that leading/political elite is bunch of selfish greedy spineless slimies running only for benefit of others like them.
PS. Funny... in that same time where most of this damage has been done holyness of capitalism/corporationism has been spreaded through world.
[B]PS. Funny... in that same time where most of this damage has been done holyness of capitalism/corporationism has been spreaded through world. [/B][/QUOTE]
Yea. But worst of it all is the consumerism that Gilette started. Before him, people would buy shoes to last generations, now people buy shoes to last a year, no more.
I hate it.
[B]Yea. But worst of it all is the consumerism that Gilette started. Before him, people would buy shoes to last generations, now people buy shoes to last a year, no more.[/B][/QUOTE]Yep, peculiar how all these corporations who claim to be environmental friendly forget to tell people that buying something if it has only minumun use is extreme resource wasting.
Also this psychotic epidemic called fashion is other resource wasting method.
[url]http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Consumption/Children.asp[/url]
Does anyone else want any more proof ??
[B]What a surprise.
And neither is it "state secret" that leading/political elite is bunch of selfish greedy spineless slimies running only for benefit of others like them.
PS. Funny... in that same time where most of this damage has been done holyness of capitalism/corporationism has been spreaded through world. [/B][/QUOTE]
No, whats funny is you should look at the ecological damage thats occured in the Soviet Union prior to its collapse, or in China currently, which is on par with things in the west.
Your's is a glass house Tyvar, quit chucking rocks.
[B]What ticks me off Tyvar is you are so quick to point at someone else, when the West is still the biggest polluter/energy whore on this rock, still far outstripping the 'other countries'. If you also factor in a 'per head' quotient, we Westerners suck even harder.
Your's is a glass house Tyvar, quit chucking rocks. [/B][/QUOTE]
No Shadowboxer, Im pointing out that everbody in this thread including you is living in a glass house.
and before you start bitching at me I'd point out you spent at least 12 hours on MirC last night, you power sucking bitch :P
To be honest I am only slightly worried about the environment and the planet. To be honest its life span is dated, any one of a hundred different perfectly natural events is going to destroy this world entirely, and anything were doing is just speeding up the process by a million years or so.
If the worlds going to end up a cinder, or shattered into pieces or the Deccan or Siberian traps goes and covers it in lava again, radiated by a gama ray burst, smothered in a intersetellar dust cloud, or any one of numerous natural phenomenon which will eventually happen. In a universal scale the exact timing isnt terribly relevent.
And last the whole "per head" data is rehasing information thats dated and or built on false assumptions and not looking at how people are living in places like China to today.
And fuck, buying what we dont need, we dont need fucking computers! ALMOST NONE OF US HERE NEEDS A COMPUTER! except those of us who uses a computer in order to do work which has a potential long term concrete beneficial impact on society.
which means using them for "art" related projects isnt enough, people did art long before computers.
And we definatly dont need new memory, CPU's,GPU's and shit to play the latest game that comes out, but we all do it anyway, oh why? cause we think its fun.
We've all been told on television that we will all be millionaires, movie gods or rock stars. But we wont.
[B]What ticks me off Tyvar is you are so quick to point at someone else, when the West is still the biggest polluter/energy whore on this rock, still far outstripping the 'other countries'. If you also factor in a 'per head' quotient, we Westerners suck even harder.
Your's is a glass house Tyvar, quit chucking rocks. [/B][/QUOTE]
There is a saying here, I dont know if it exists in english, but it goes a little something like this. 'Clean your own porch before you start nagging at someone else'. I.e. instead of pointing at someone else, fix you own problems first..
[B]Does anyone else want any more proof ?? [/B][/QUOTE]Remember what I said about this specie in one certain thread...
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Tyvar [/i]
[B]No, whats funny is you should look at the ecological damage thats occured in the Soviet Union prior to its collapse, or in China currently, which is on par with things in the west. [/B][/QUOTE]First: I don't live there if geography was little forgotten subject in your school...
And they did it because they just didn't care. (and they definitely had the ability to hide it from people)
Now these giant corporations (+their bigshots/owners) do it for money! (and Dubya&big money is doing everything it can to hide that)
[B] To be honest I am only slightly worried about the environment and the planet. To be honest its life span is dated, any one of a hundred different perfectly natural events is going to destroy this world entirely, and anything were doing is just speeding up the process by a million years or so.
If the worlds going to end up a cinder, or shattered into pieces or the Deccan or Siberian traps goes and covers it in lava again, radiated by a gama ray burst, smothered in a intersetellar dust cloud, or any one of numerous natural phenomenon which will eventually happen. In a universal scale the exact timing isnt terribly relevent.[/B][/QUOTE]Yeah, so why not to make things quicker and lauch full-scale nuclear war and terminate this destructive civilization!
After all that might be best thing to happen from perspective of rest of the nature... worst radioactive fallout would disappear in few hundred years while mankind's self-destruction is faulty and might take longer time.
[url]http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm[/url]
And thanks for taking computers as subject...
You can do little to make things better without throwing computer out through window or without shutting it down and not using it anymore... there's funny thing called efficiency which affects how well PSU converts AC to DC.
Biggest things affecting is design of PSU.
Smaller factor is how heavy load (in proportion to PSU's maximum output) PSU has to power, efficiency is at its lowest level with light load rising slowly until around 1/4 load it should start to be quite close to maximum, after that it stays quite steady being highest around 50%-75% load and again starting to decrease faster only close to highest output power.
For PSU with very louse efficiency Thermaltake works as good example: (or bad, depending on perspective)
[url]http://www.systemcooling.com/thermaltake_pp_680-07.html[/url]
And as good example let's take Enermax:
[url]http://www.silentpcreview.com/article149-page3.html[/url]
Now let's assume that average computer might use 100W in gaming.
So let's look how Thermaltake works: 100W / 0.6 ~ 165W
Which means it "wastes" 65 watts.
And now Enermax: 100W / 0.76 ~ 130W
Meaning 30 watts of wasted power.
[SIZE=4][COLOR=red]Lousy PSU wastes over 30 watts more/double amount of power compared to good PSU![/COLOR] [/SIZE]
And for very highend PC (not highend SLI) 200 watts might be quite good value for power draw under heavy use.
Now efficiency of Thermaltake takes huge step to "high" 67% efficiency: 200W / 0.67 ~ 300W
While Enermax's efficiency increases only five percents to 81%: 200W / 0.81 ~ 245W
[b]So now lousy PSU (actually 65-70% is quite normal efficiency) takes 100 watts of waste while good PSU manages with only 45 watts of wasted power.[/b]
For comparison how good "heavyweight" PSU acts even under very light load:
[url]http://www.silentpcreview.com/article221-page3.html[/url]
Enough said :)