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Healthy Money Healthy Planet - library.uniteddiversity.coop

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58<br />

• Six million hectares of land are abandoned every year, degraded by desertification,<br />

salination and soil erosion.<br />

• Fifty­five per cent of tropical forests have been destroyed and wilderness areas are<br />

shrinking.<br />

• At least 5000 species disappear each year – about 10,000 times the pre­human<br />

extinction rate.<br />

• One­fifth of the world’s population breathes air more poisonous than the World<br />

Health Organisation’s standards recommend. An entire generation of Mexico’s<br />

children may be mentally stunted by lead poisoning. 19<br />

Population Growth<br />

And, of course, not only is our exponential economic growth causing environmental<br />

stress, but so is our exponential population growth. In the last 100 years the world’s<br />

population increased from 1.6 billion to 6 billion. It hit 3 billion in 1960 and has<br />

doubled again in the blink of a planetary eye. By 2025, two­thirds of our inhabitants<br />

will be urban­dwellers, leading to more traffic and pollution, and to more crime and<br />

violence. 20 The Worldwatch Institute has said that we should aim to have a global<br />

population of no more than 7 billion. 21<br />

Not only are there many more of us, but we now use greater and greater<br />

quantities of energy and material in manufacturing computers, cars, drugs and<br />

artificial chemicals. We cover the globe with our lights, buildings, farms, roads, plans,<br />

ships and dumps. Even in New Zealand, the amount of solid waste in landfills<br />

increased by 30 per cent between 1992 and 1995. 22 In 2001, Environment magazine said,<br />

‘The generation of solid waste is a serious problem worldwide, particularly among<br />

industrialized nations where the amount of solid waste generated continues to increase<br />

in both absolute and per capita terms.’ 23

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