[Scpg] Satellite Map reveals man's destructive nature

[scpg-admin at arashi.com]

SATELLITE MAP REVEALS MAN'S DESTRUCTIVE NATURE


Unique atlas shows that humans have radically altered half the surface of


the Earth


Reports by Steve Connor in San Francisco

17 February 2001


A new scientific picture of the world, showing how man has left an

indelible mark on the planet that is visible from space, was published

yesterday by scientists who warned that the Earth was undergoing an

unprecedented transformation.

The map, compiled from satellite images, shows almost a quarter of the

Earth's surface has been entirely transformed, either by being covered

over, by roads and buildings or ploughed up for crops. Another quarter

has

been exploited to a lesser degree, but in a way that has completely

altered

its natural state.

A rapidly growing human population, rising economic expectations,

continual

decline in natural resources and increasing pollution by industrialised

countries are leading to a crisis of epic proportions.

This stark warning is contained in a new atlas of the world showing how

humans have had a devastating impact on the natural environment. The

report, compiled by the American Association for the Advancement of

Science

(AAAS), was published on the opening day of its annual meeting in San

Francisco.

"We have become a force of nature comparable to volcanoes or to cyclical

variations in the Earth's orbit," the report warns.  "As we enter the

third millennium, the destiny of the planet is in our hands as never before,

 yet they are inexperienced hands. We are modifying ecosystems and global

systems faster than we can understand the changes and prepare responses

to them."

The main satellite map in the AAAS Atlas of Population and Environment

shows the full extent of human influence. The swath of pink, denoting

complete transformation, covers not only the developed world of North

America and Europe, but vast areas of Asia and Africa. No continent

except

Antarctica is unscathed.

"Humans are perhaps the most successful species in the history of life on

Earth. From a few thousand individuals some 200,000 years ago, we passed

1 billion around 1800 and 6 billion in 1999. Our levels of consumption and

the scope of our technologies have grown in parallel with, and in some

ways outpaced, our numbers," the report says. "But our success is showing

signs of overreaching itself, of threatening the key resources on which we

depend. Today our impact on the planet has reached a truly massive scale.


In many fields our ecological footprint outweighs the impact of all other


living species combined.

"We have transformed approximately half the land on Earth for our own

uses, around 11 per cent each for farming and forestry, and 26 per cent for

pasture, with at least another 2 to 3 per cent for housing, industry,

services and transport. The area used for growing crops has increased by

almost six times since 1700, mainly at the expense of forest and

woodland," the report says.


Images from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer satellite,

operated by Nasa and the US Geological Survey, yielded the principal map

on human transformation of the land, said Lars Bromley of the AAAS's

Directorate for International Programs.

"You can determine whether something is paved over, whether something is

bare soil, a ploughed field, or whether it's normal land cover," Mr

Bromley said. "You can detect a lot of the sources of pollutants, basically
from

the northern hemisphere. When people see the extent of the transformation

they are surprised."

Past attempts to estimate global land use, have been hindered by the lack

of full geographical coverage, which is not a problem with a

polar-orbiting satellite, Mr Bromley said. "By getting this eye-in-the-sky
view you can prove that ... this cropland is far more extensive than anybody

recognised."

The atlas shows the extent to which soil erosion has affected a

substantial

part of the Earth's surface that has gone under cultivation and then been

abandoned. "Worldwide, an estimated 12 million hectares of croplands fall

out of use for this reason each year. Economists have estimated the value

of this lost soil, in terms of nutrients and water-holding capacity, at

about $400bn," the report says.

Fresh water has also been degraded. "Chronic or acute water shortage is

increasingly common in many countries with fast-growing populations,

becoming a potential source of conflict," the report says. "The

distribution of water resources around the globe is highly unequal ...

Canada has more than 30 times as much water available to each citizen as

China.

"Today it is estimated that 31 countries with 8 per cent of the world's

population  mostly in Africa and the Middle East have water shortages. By

2025 the figure is likely to have risen to 48 countries and 35 per cent

of population ... The crisis is likely to be worsened by the deteriorating

quality of water, polluted by industrial wastes and sewage discharges,

and spreading diseases such as cholera and schistosomiasis."

The AAAS report concludes that humans have:

                                  * Regulated the flow of about

two-thirds

of all rivers on Earth, creating artificial lakes and altering the

ecology of existing lakes and estuaries;

                                  * Fished two-thirds of marine fisheries

to the limit or beyond and altered ecologies of many marine species. In

100 years we have destroyed half of coastal forests and irrevocably degraded

a tenth of coral reefs;

                                  * Contributed 50 per cent more to the

nitrogen cycle than all natural sources combined, leading to the

impoverishment of forest soils and forest death, and at sea to the

development of toxic algal blooms and expanding "dead zones" devoid of

oxygen;

                                  * Released toxic metals into the

biosphere through mining and processing that would otherwise have

remained

safely locked in stone;

                                  * Had an incalculable effect on

biodiversity. The 484 animal and 654 plant species recorded as extinct

since 1600 are only "the tip of a massive iceberg";

                                  * Become a major force of evolution,

not

just for the "new" species we breed and genetically engineer, but for the


thousands of species whose habitats we modify, consigning many to

extinction.


"In this unprecedented situation, the need to be fully aware of what we

are

doing has never been greater," the report says.  "We need to understand

the

way in which population, consumption and technology create their impact,

to

review that impact across the most critical fields, and to find ways of

using our understanding of the links to inform policy."


For more information check out the Hayduke Rocks! web site:

http://www.efmedia.org