Politics and the Environment :: Environmental Climate Change

The July 9, 2002 anesthetize of the World Wildlife Funds third Living Planet chronicle - which asserts that the human race is currently consuming resources at a array 20% percent greater than the Earths ability to revitalise - coincided unsurprisingly with the simultaneous release of both counter-dispatches by the Cato Institute. In conjunction with an extra counter-argument published in the Institutes August 26 stochastic variable of Policy Analysis, these devil dispatches serve as a fairly straight example of Conservative/Libertarian criticisms of the environmentalist movement or at least(prenominal) as examples prominent enough to merit scrutiny. The August 26 piece, indite by Jerry Taylor, draws heavily on evidence presented by Patrick J. Michaels, a prof of meteorology whom William K. Stevens of the New York Times regards as arguably one of the two most persistent and visible scientists skeptical of climate change. The other two dispatches, written by Reason magazines science printer Ronald Bailey and the late anti-Malthusian environmentalist critic Julian L. Simon, though both to begin with published prior to the WWFs Living Planet report are still relevant because of the prominence of their critique within policy circles advocating set-a dissociate markets and limited government.The Living Planet report, itself, is divided into two distinct parts. The prime(prenominal) is the Living Planet Index, which was calculated by measuring population info from 1970 to 1995 for three abstracted categories of wildlife - forest, freshwater, and marine. The data used for the Index was gathered by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Conservation Monitoring warmheartedness (UNEP-WCMC). The Living Planet Index is primarily an indicator of ecosystem health as a function of species decline and as such will non be focused on in depth here as it does not pertain directly to the global warming debate.The second part of the report (the WWF s assessment of humanitys Ecological Footprint) hopes to measuring stick the amount of the Earths biologically productive overturn that the global population, a nation, and an fair(a) member of that nation inhabits in one year. The memorial is measured in Global Hectares a measurement defined by the WWF as one hectare of biologically productive space with world average productivity. There are currently 11.4 billion hectares of biologically productive land total - one quarter of the planets surface. Of these 11.4 billion hectares 2.0 bil is ocean, 1.5 bil is cropland, 3.5 bil is sliver land, 3.8 bil is forest cover, .3 bil inland water, and .