The pernicious secret at the heart of the Ecological Footprint

[The_jackalope]

The concept of the Ecological footprint was developed in 1992 by William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel at UBC in Vancouver, Canada. Ecological footprint analysis is widely used around the Earth in support of sustainability assessments. It enables people to measure and manage the use of resources throughout the economy and explore the sustainability of individual lifestyles, goods and services, organizations, industry sectors, neighborhoods, cities, regions and nations.

The accepted global footprint situation is described like this:

The world-average ecological footprint in 2012 was 2.84 global hectares per person (22.1 billion in total). With a world-average biocapacity of 1.73 global hectares (gha) per person (9.2 billion in total), this leads to a global ecological deficit of 1.1 global hectares per person (7.8 billion in total).

However, in the Wikipedia article on Sustainability, we find this shocking little gem. I have emphasized the "pernicious secret" in bold.

The Ecological footprint measures human consumption in terms of the biologically productive land needed to provide the resources, and absorb the wastes of the average global citizen. In 2008 it required 2.7 global hectares per person, 30% more than the natural biological capacity of 2.1 global hectares (assuming no provision for other organisms). The resulting ecological deficit must be met from unsustainable extra sources and these are obtained in three ways: embedded in the goods and services of world trade; taken from the past (e.g. fossil fuels); or borrowed from the future as unsustainable resource usage (e.g. by over exploiting forests and fisheries).

This implies that if we allow any organisms not intended for human use to use this land, its biological capacity to serve human needs is reduced.

For example, if we assume that on average 25% of the biological capacity of land is used by other organisms, then the amount of land available for human use is effectively reduced by the same amount. The actual capacity used by other creatures is unknowable, but it seems to me as though 25% would be a conservative number as a global average.

Using this percentage for illustration, the per capita biocapacity of the planet is reduced from 1.73 to 1.3 global hectares. That in turn raises the deficit of the human footprint from 1.1 gha to 1.53 gha.

Because of the increased deficit, the degree of human overshoot not 52%, but a rather more worrying 73%. The more biocapacity we allow other creatures to use, the worse the human overshoot becomes.

[Duppers]

1. We're a selfish...

Disgusting species bent on destruction.

People should be taxed for having children! (I can hear the screams now.)

[The_jackalope]

2. These days I think that planetary damage is more closely related to our energy consumption

More closely to energy consumption than to the simple number of people.

In line with that I'm more in favour of an energy consumption tax, levied on all types of energy - fossil fuels and electricity alike. Of course that would penalize people in higher latitudes more than those in more tropical locations, but we shouldn't be living in places we weren't evolved for anyway.

Perhaps both would be in order. A one-time tax on childbirth and a life-long tax on energy consumption. Just to piss everyone off...

Basically we need to bring the expansion of civilization to a halt any way we can, and initiate a process of contraction instead.

But who will bell the cat?