Satellite pictureA new report by the Center for Environment and Population (CEP) demonstrates the relationship between national population trends, resource consumption, and environmental degradation.

Quoted from Introduction:

Global environmental changes are occurring in ways fundamentally different than at any other time in our history. Experts tell us that virtually all of the Earth’s ecosystems have been signifi cantly transformed through human actions, and that 60% of the Earth’s ecosystems have been degraded or used unsustainably. These changes have been especially rapid in the past 50 years, and are expected to continue into the foreseeable future.

For the first time in human history, we are using many of the planet’s natural resources faster than they can replenish themselves. The impacts are becoming more and more obvious: freshwater resources are increasingly vulnerable, more plant and animal species are becoming endangered or extinct, land-use transformation is pervasive, and even the global climate is changing. Experts trace these seemingly disparate environmental phenomena to a single cause: the growing scale of human activities.

In simple terms, the human population is growing, we are consuming natural resources at unprecedented
rates, and the planet is demonstrating the effects. Human population factors (such as growth, movement, density and resource consumption) are considered to be a main driver and multiplier of many environmental impacts in the United States and worldwide. Humanity is dominating nature at a cost to species, ecosystems and human health, with social and economic implications as well.