Description
Humankind’s failure to reinvest a portion of the monetary riches provided by nature back into the globe’s life-supporting ecosystems has produced a mounting deficit on the world’s ecological balance of payments. This deficit has now grown to be 20 percent of the Earth's capacity - we are consuming
resources 20 percent faster than they regenerate.
At the same time, the accumulated ecological deficit over the last 20 years has now grown, as shown in this report, to be the equivalent of 2.7 planet years of ecological production. Such large and still rising ecological cumulative deficits are not sustainable and feed growing systemic risk to humankind’s economic, environmental or human security.
The impact of environmental events and associated risks on society such as forest fires, hurricanes, floods, landslides, oil spills or industrial contaminants or accidents is already large and growing. Typically, only 10-20% of the financial costs of such disasters are insured.
Information
- Author(s)
- J. Steven Lovink, Mathis Wackernagel, and Steven H. Goldfinger
- Publisher
- Institute for Environmental Security and TransGLobal Ventures, Inc.
- Place published
- The Hague
- Date / journal vol no.
- October, 2004
- Pages
- 32
