We've started eating the planet

The Independent reports in this sobering article:

"Today is a bleak day for the environment, the day of the year when mankind over-exploits the world's resources - the day when we start living beyond our ecological means.

Evidence is mounting that rapid population growth and rising living standards among the Earth's six billion inhabitants are putting an intolerable strain on nature. For the first time an organisation a British think-tank has sought to pinpoint how quickly man is using the global resources of farming land, forests, fish, air and energy.

The new economics foundation has calculated from research by a US academic group, Global Footprint Network, that the day when we use more than our fair share of the Earth when "humanity starts eating the planet" is October 9".

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Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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