Inconvenient

Some of you will have seen Al Gore's Academy Award-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. If you haven't, I strongly recommend it. It's very eye-opening.

For my group assignment in International Studies, we are looking at the Global Environment - specifically issues of climate change and environmental devastation that have been caused or accelerated by globalisation. This may sound very large and above our heads, but it is a very real, confronting issue that is contributed to by and that has an effect on every one of us.

The issue is this: for the first time in human history, we have reached, and are exceeding the ecological limits of our planet. The global population is booming, while the global natural resources are being quickly depleted. There is not enough to go around, under the current consumption levels of this world. The major consumption is by people like you and me - in the developed world.

The world population is approximately 6.6 billion. At the current average level of global consumption, according to In a Nutshell by Ron Nielsen, our planet can only support about 4.8 billion.

Industrialised countries consume twice as much energy as developing countries, and people in these countries (that's us) personally consume more than eight times the energy that developing country citizens do.

On Sime's blog, he posted the link to the World Clock. Though the figures are estimates of the actual numbers, they are not hugely inaccurate. It is frightening to see how quickly the C02 emissions, Earth temperature and military expenditure rises. The amount of money spent on things that destroy people far outshadows the amount spent to reduce the things that are destroying the Earth.

It might be interesting for you to calculate your ecological footprint. It becomes very clear how much strain is being put on the Earth. I admit that I do not do enough to care for the environment. Most of the time, I tend not to even think about where what I'm consuming comes from or what had to be done or killed or removed for it to get to me. If everybody lived like me, we would need 4.1 planets. My total footprint is 7.7 global hectares, required to support my lifestyle. It shames me.

Though all these figures and stats are big and scary, there are lots of things you can do. You can lobby the government to do more to alleviate the gross inequality between rich nations and poor. You can investigate alternative energy sources, and research how to help make these more viable. You can catch public transport more or ride your bike or carpool. You can convert your house to green energy schemes, take shorter showers, turn off electricity points when they aren't needed. There are many tips on the Sustainable Energy Authority of Victoria website.

The developed world we live in is responsible for so much of the damage that has been done to the environment. As we continue to consume more and more, the Earth will die with us. Our children and their children and our future generations will be subject to an increasingly suffering Earth, until there is nothing left for them.

This is not just an inconvenient truth. It is scary, terrible, and it makes me personally feel very guilty. I will be investigating stuff I can do in my own life that can help reduce my own ecological footprint.