Over-consumption of earth's resources continues

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/23/earths-resources-consumed-in-ever-greater-destructive-volumes?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other  Quoting:

Humanity is devouring our planet’s resources in increasingly destructive volumes, according to a new study that reveals we have consumed a year’s worth of carbon, food, water, fibre, land and timber in a record 212 days.

As a result, the Earth Overshoot Day – which marks the point at which consumption exceeds the capacity of nature to regenerate – has moved forward two days to 1 August, the earliest date ever recorded. To maintain our current appetite for resources, we would need the equivalent of 1.7 Earths, according to Global Footprint Network, an international research organisation that makes an annual assessment of how far humankind is falling into ecological debt.



The overshoot began in the 1970s, when rising populations and increasing average demands pushed consumption beyond a sustainable level. Since then, the day at which humanity has busted its annual planetary budget has moved forward.

Thirty years ago, the overshoot was on 15 October. Twenty years ago, 30 September. Ten years ago, 15 August. There was a brief slowdown, but the pace has picked back up in the past two years. On current trends, next year could mark the first time, the planet’s budget is busted in July.

While ever greater food production, mineral extraction, forest clearance and fossil-fuel burning bring short-term (and unequally distributed) lifestyle gains, the long-term consequences are increasingly apparent in terms of soil erosion, water shortages and climate disruption.

The day of reckoning is moving nearer, according to Mathis Wackernagel, chief executive and co-founder of Global Footprint Network. “Our current economies are running a Ponzi scheme with our planet,” he said. “We are borrowing the Earth’s future resources to operate our economies in the present. Like any Ponzi scheme, this works for some time. But as nations, companies, or households dig themselves deeper and deeper into debt, they eventually fall apart.”

The situation is reversible. Research by the group indicates political action is far more effective than individual choices. It notes, for example, that replacing 50% of meat consumption with a vegetarian diet would push back the overshoot date by five days. Efficiency improvements in building and industry could make a difference of three weeks, and a 50% reduction of the carbon component of the footprint would give an extra three months of breathing space.

In the past, economic slowdowns – which tend to reduce energy consumption – have also shifted the ecological budget in a positive direction. The 2007-08 financial crisis saw the date push back by five days. Recessions in the 90s and 80s also lifted some of the pressure, as did the oil shock of the mid 1970s.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46447459 Quoting:

A booming global market for cars has helped drive CO2 emissions to an all-time high in 2018, say researchers. The main factor in the near 3% rise has been coal use in China, driven by government efforts to boost a flagging economy. But emissions from cars, truck and planes using fossil fuels continue to rise in all parts of the world. Renewables have also grown this year, but are not keeping pace with the CO2 rise.

The research, carried out by the Global Carbon Project (GCP), says that this year's "strong" rise is projected to be 2.7%. While coal use remains below the historically high level of 2013, it has grown again this year. China, the world's largest emitter saw emissions rise an estimated 4.7%.

At UN climate talks in Katowice, the lead researcher Prof Corinne Le Quéré, from the University of East Anglia, told BBC News that the rise in China was down to government activity. "For the past two years, the Chinese government has boosted the economy and the economy is based on construction and heavy industry, coal and steel. When you boost the economy you actually see a rise in emissions," she said.

Other factors include a rise in the US after several years of decline, which the researchers say is due to a very cold winter and a hot summer driving up demand for energy.That's much bigger than 2017's 1.6%. This will worry scientists as they had seen CO2 emissions relatively flat for the three years before.

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/A8EB/production/_104634234_global_emissions-nc.png

. . . One common factor across rich and poor countries alike has been the continued rise in the consumption of oil in the transport sector. In the EU, the amount of fuel used for flights and road transport has surged by 4%. In US, use of coal actually fell while fossil fuels used in car journeys rose by 1.4%.

"Apart from the coal story, the emissions from oil use in cars and lorries and trucks and aviation have not been abated at all," said Prof Le Quéré. "They just keep rising and rising and that's associated with an increase in cars everywhere around the world." According to the experts, people are driving bigger petrol and diesel cars, travelling further than before, in more countries.

It's not good news, says the scientists, who argue that global emissions have to start to fall by 2020 if the world is to meet the temperature goals of the Paris agreement. People are simply not keeping the promises they made three years ago when the Paris climate agreement was signed.

It will make me LOL if we go into a mini-ice age and this whole thing becomes a moot point.

I can't do my own research on global warming and since about 95% of experts agree on man being responsible for climate change, I logically have to assume they are correct.

https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm

But climate change probably won't seriously affect anyone living now, so the question is: should we care about people who don't yet exist? Also, the sun will eventually become so hot that all life on the planet will end anyway, so why bother trying to 'save the planet'?