A cultural solution to the world's resource crisis

A cultural solution to the world's resource crisis

Architect of the ecological footprint calls for a cultural response to environmental degradation

In this article William E. Rees, architect of the 'ecological footprint' ( a way to calculate the area of productive ecosystem required to support a population) argues that this kind of analysis is a key way to bring home the reality that we are stamping out the world's resources.

He says that humanity is on a collision course with biophysical reality and, as biology provides no immediate remedy, the solution must be cultural. The alternative, he adds, is resource wars and descent into geopolitical chaos. [SciDev abstract]

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