| Author (Person) | King, Tim |
|---|---|
| Series Title | European Voice |
| Series Details | Vol.10, No.36, 21.10.04 |
| Publication Date | 21/10/2004 |
| Content Type | News |
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By Tim King THE world of environmental campaigning is plagued with problems of measurement. How do we measure the extent of environmental damage? How are politicians to put a price on the cost of such damage? How are policymakers to assess the cost-benefits of environmental regulation? Campaigners against the REACH chemicals proposal from the European Commission complain that it would add 13 billion euro to their direct costs. The Commission estimates that REACH might save 4,500 lives per year. How much are these measurements worth? A book this year from the American economist Frank Ackerman and Lisa Heinzerling, a law professor, is highly critical of the use of cost-benefit analysis. In Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing, they argue that it is impossible to put a price on some goods, such as a child's health or a stable climate. Nevertheless, there are environmentalists who take on the challenge of measurement so that they can do battle in a numbers-obsessed world. The Living Planet Report 2004, published today (21 October) by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) uses a few easily understood indices, built up from a mass of data, to describe environmental effects and environmental trends. The Living Planet Index is an indicator of the state of the world's biodiversity. It measures trends in populations of vertebrate species living on land, in freshwater and in marine ecosystems. The terrestrial species index has fallen by about 30% in 1970-2000. Over the same period, the freshwater species has declined by about 50% and the marine index has fallen by about 30%. The LPI, which is the average of the three, fell by about 40%. Over the same period the world's human population grew by 65%. The Living Planet Report goes on to consider the Ecological Footprint of various populations. The footprint measures a population's consumption of natural resources. “A country's footprint is the total area required to produce the food and fibre that it consumes, absorb the waste from its energy consumption and provide space for its infrastructure,” the report states. The report concludes that in 2001 humanity's ecological footprint was 2.5 times larger than in 1961 and that it exceeded the Earth's biological capacity by about 20%. The Earth's natural capital is being depleted and cannot be sustained. Averaged across the world, the ecological footprint per person is 2.2 hectares. In Western Europe, the average is 5.1 hectares, compared with 9.5 hectares in the USA, 4.3 hectares in Japan and 7.7 hectares in Australia. Within Western Europe, there are noticeable variations, with the Nordic countries having a larger footprint (see table). The beauty of the Ecological Footprint is that it is relatively easy to understand. It satisfies the policymakers' (and perhaps the voters') desire for a number, without subjecting them to all the detail that might be contained in a set of indicators. Critics may complain that it is aggregating items that should not be accumulated: apples with oranges, chalk with cheese. They could argue that the headline-grabbing results are very sensitive to the underlying assumptions. The Footprint has its limitations. It only provides a snapshot of past demands on resources and availability. It does not estimate future losses to the Earth's biocapacity caused by the present degradation of resources, such as deforestation or the destruction of fisheries' supplies. Mathis Wackernagel, who has pioneered the concept, would admit that the footprint is still capable of refinement, but defends its components. He has at least made an attempt to measure the priceless. EU's 2001 Ecological Footprint - global hectares per person
No figures for Cyprus and Malta Others:
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) published the Living Planet Report 2004, 21 October 2004 in which it uses a few easily understood indices, built up from a mass of data, to describe environmental effects and environmental trends. Among other things it considers the Ecological Footprint of various populations. |
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| Source Link | http://www.european-voice.com/ |
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| Subject Categories | Environment |
| Countries / Regions | Europe |
