The resources of this globe are being exhausted or depleted more rapidly than was anticipated earlier. Resource depletion is the consumption of a resource faster than it can be restored to a former level or condition. Natural resources are commonly divided between renewable resources and non-renewable resources. The use of either of these forms of resources beyond their rate of replacement is considered to be resource depletion. The value of a resource is a direct result of its availability in nature and the cost of extracting the resource, the more a resource is depleted the more the value of the resource increases.
There are several types of resource depletion, such as aquifer depletion, deforestation, depletion of wildlife populations, mining for fossil fuels and minerals, pollution or contamination of water resources, slash-and-burn agricultural practices, soil erosion, and overconsumption, excessive or unnecessary use of any resources.
UN Environment’s ‘Global Resources Outlook 2019’, prepared by the International Resource Panel, examines the trends in natural resources and their corresponding consumption patterns since the 1970s. Its main findings are as follows:
* The extraction and processing of materials, fuels, and food contribute half of total global greenhouse gas emissions and over 90 percent of biodiversity loss and water stress.
* Resource extraction has more than tripled since 1970, including a fivefold increase in the use of non-metallic minerals and a 45 percent increase in fossil fuel use.
* By 2060, global material use could double to 190 billion tonnes (from 92 billion), while greenhouse gas emissions could increase by 43 percent.
* Besides transport, another major consumer of resources is the rapidly growing building sector.
* Cement, a key input into concrete, the most widely used construction material in the world, is a major source of greenhouse gases and accounts for about eight percent of carbon dioxide emissions, according to a recent ‘Chatham House’ report.
* Both concrete and clay manufacturing (for bricks) include energy-intensive processes for raw material extraction, transportation, and fuel sources for heating kilns.
* Building quality sand is currently being extracted at unsustainable rates.
Many rich and powerful country’s extraction of mineral resources endlessly, especially from poor African countries are damaging ecological balances and increasing wealth inequalities worldwide. According to UN Environment climate change specialist NiklasHagelberg – extraction of materials is a chief culprit in climate change and biodiversity loss – a challenge that will only worsen unless the world urgently undertakes a systemic reform of resource use which reform is both necessary and possible. For example, as the volume of the use of fossil fuel is increasing day by day-the reserve would be exhausted very soon. In that reality, invention, and use of alternative fuel, renewable energy of air and sunlight.
Unlimited extraction and consumption of resources, unscrupulous wastage of food, recklessness in expenditure for the unwarranted arms race, excessive luxury are the worst enemies of today’s economy. According to a report presented by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), roughly one-third of the food produced across the world for human consumption every year, which amounts to approximately 1.3 billion tonnes, gets lost or wasted. Food losses and wastes amount to roughly $ 680 billion in industrialized countries and $310 billion in developing countries. By reducing wastage significantly, food safety could be ensured for millions of more people in the world, diverse changes in the atmosphere and depletion of resources could be made slower.
Calculating overshoot day and ecological footprint:
The exact date of Earth Overshoot Day is declared every year by the ‘Global Footprint Network’, a non-profit research group that takes the planet’s biocapacity – the amount of available natural resources – and divides it by the number of resources we have used up humanity’s Ecological Footprint. This number is then multiplied by the days in a year.
The so-called Earth Overshoot Day, first conceived back in 2006, marks the point at which our demand surpasses the resources Earth can regenerate in a given year. The latest estimates which were taken in 2019, show we were then just a week away from that date for 2018. Due to over-fishing, over-harvesting, and excessive emissions, researchers say we have used up a year’s worth of resources in just 212 (out of 365) days or we are demanding the resource equivalent of 1.7 Earths. According to the estimation of the team behind the effort to push back the Earth Overshoot Day, that point falls on August 1st this year, August 21 in 2010, and December 07 in 1990.
The concept of ‘Ecological Footprint’ was developed by Mathis Wackernagel of the Global Footprint Network which calculates the impact of a person or community on the environment, expressed as the amount of land required to sustain their use of natural resources. In an interview, he told that our collective consumption currently exceeds by 70 percent what our planet Earth can renew. It means that we currently need 1.7 planets to support humanity’s demand on Earth’s ecosystems.
A person’s footprint ranges vastly across the globe, from eight or more “global hectares” (20 acres or more) for the biggest consumers in the United Arab Emirates, the US, Kuwait, and Denmark, to half a hectare in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Afghanistan, and Malawi. The global average consumption was 2.7 hectares a person, compared with a notional sustainable capacity of 2.1 hectares. The UK, with an average footprint of about 5.5 hectares, ranks 15th in the world, just below Uruguay and the Czech Republic, and ahead of Finland and Belgium.
High-income countries live at the cost of low-income nations:
The Global Footprint Network does not just look at the global ecological footprint but also calculates each country’s individual use of resources. Not surprisingly, high-income countries like Luxembourg, Qatar, Australia, and the United States use far more resources per year than low-income countries such as Eritrea, Haiti, Burundi, and Pakistan. The US and China account for more than two-fifths of the planet’s ecological footprint, with 21% each.
Take Germany for example. If the whole population of the world lived like Germany, we would need 3.2 Earths to feed our hunger for consumption. In comparison, if everyone in this world lived like the people in Mozambique, we would need less than half a planet a year.
How to heal the wounds:
The integration of energy-efficient buildings and better public transportation, for example, could help to slash the footprint of urban areas. By slashing meat consumption and reducing global food waste, the experts say we could push the overshoot target back by several days. At the same time, according to Global Footprint Network- reducing the carbon component of humanity’s ecological footprint by 50 percent would get us from consuming the resources of 1.7 piles of earth down to 1.2 Earths. This corresponds to moving the date of Overshoot Day by 93 days, or about three months.
Above all, all of us should be more logical, more rational, more ethical in our lifestyle, luxury, utilization of global resources, use of fossil fuel, industrialization, urbanization, deforestation, and consumption pattern controlling our unlimited greed for wealth and luxury to save this planet, mankind, and civilization from ultimate devastation.
The writer is a banker and
freelance column writer
