Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony
Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony
Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony
RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony
Waiting for SIPO Anthony Public Inquiry >>
Promoting Human Rights in IrelandHuman Rights in Ireland >>
Starmer?s Palestinian Pledge Exposes the West?s Moral Collapse Thu Jul 31, 2025 15:05 | Laura Perrins The fact that either Britain or France would recognise a Palestinian state while Hamas still holds hostages sums up the moral rot at the heart of Europe, says Laura Perrins.
The post Starmer?s Palestinian Pledge Exposes the West?s Moral Collapse appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
?Muhammad? Tops Baby Name Charts Again Thu Jul 31, 2025 13:00 | Richard Eldred Muhammad is once again the most popular baby name for boys in England and Wales, in a year marked by a growing trend towards global, cross-cultural naming.
The post ?Muhammad? Tops Baby Name Charts Again appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
White House Warns Starmer: Stop Threatening US Tech Companies? Free Speech Thu Jul 31, 2025 11:00 | Toby Young It looks increasingly likely that the sweeping censorship powers granted to Ofcom by the Online Safety Act will be raised in US-UK trade talks, as the Trump administration becomes increasingly concerned.
The post White House Warns Starmer: Stop Threatening US Tech Companies? Free Speech appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Mainstream Naysayers Gather As Hopes Rise for Fourth Year of Record Coral on the Great Barrier Reef Thu Jul 31, 2025 09:00 | Chris Morrison Despite three record years of coral growth, the mainstream media keeps pushing doom and gloom on the Great Barrier Reef ? a story that doesn't quite add up, says the Daily Sceptic's Environment Editor.
The post Mainstream Naysayers Gather As Hopes Rise for Fourth Year of Record Coral on the Great Barrier Reef appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Unless Migrant Crime Is Happening to Them Personally, Many Brits Simply Refuse to Believe It Even Ex... Thu Jul 31, 2025 07:00 | Steven Tucker Britain's migrant crimewave is only invisible to those living in leafy delusion ? just ask Steven Tucker, who rips into the blind elites mistaking burning mattresses for cultural enrichment.
The post Unless Migrant Crime Is Happening to Them Personally, Many Brits Simply Refuse to Believe It Even Exists ? Especially Our Blinkered Rulers appeared first on The Daily Sceptic. Lockdown Skeptics >>
Voltaire, international edition
Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en
Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en
Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en
Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en
The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en Voltaire Network >>
|
Cuba Flies Lone Flag for Sustainability
international |
environment |
other press
Thursday October 11, 2007 23:10 by Tech1.0

According to a new study on ecological sustainablity published in New Scientist, Cuba is showing the way on life in a post-oil world.
(from last week's New Scientist - I'm publishing this in the inter-national public interest...)
"We don’t need environmental evangelicals to tell us that sustainable development is a good idea. Yet, if that is our goal, we are heading in the wrong direction - with the exception of Cuba. So says the first study to examine the ecological impact of changing lifestyles around the globe.
 We don’t need environmental evangelicals to tell us that sustainable development is a good idea. Yet, if that is our goal, we are heading in the wrong direction - with the exception of Cuba. So says the first study to examine the ecological impact of changing lifestyles around the globe.
An international team led by Mathis Wackernagel of the Global Footprint Network looked at how the living conditions and ecological footprints of 93 nations have changed in the last 30 years.
They used the ecological footprint (EF) index, a tool devised in 1993 by Wackernagel and William Rees, his PhD supervisor at the University of British Columbia, Canada. EF quantifies the area of land required to provide the infrastructure used by a person or a nation, the food and goods they consume, and to reabsorb the waste they produce, using available technology. This value can then be compared with the resources that are actually available to people on a regional or global scale. EF has become a popular index, and was used recently, for example, by conservation group WWF to calculate that two more planets would be needed to support everyone in the world in the manner of the average UK citizen.
However, rather than just measure consumption, Wackernagel and his colleagues wanted to measure how close countries are to developing in a sustainable way. The problem is that “sustainability” is an elusive concept. “Nobody dares to say what it actually means,” Wackernagel told New Scientist. “We believe we provided a robust measurement.”
For each nation with reliable data, they calculated how many planets would be needed to support the global population if everybody adopted that nation’s lifestyle as it was in 1978, and in 2003. They then expressed each figure as an Earth-equivalent ratio (EER) and plotted each value against the nation’s corresponding UN Human Development Index. The index is a score of between 0 and 1, and is a function of a country’s average life expectancy, adult literacy, level of schooling and per capita GDP.
To develop sustainably, the researchers assume a country must have an HDI of at least 0.8 and a maximum EER of 1 (see Diagram). A lower HDI would mean a nation is not developing adequately, while a higher EER means it is gobbling up too many resources.
By looking at each country’s historical trajectory, a clear pattern emerges. People everywhere have a better lifestyle, but their footprint is growing at a rate proportional to their wealth. Developed countries in particular have done very little to reduce their impact. Only one nation, Cuba, is developing sustainably, and probably not for long (Ecological Economics, DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2007.08.017). “Cubans have high life expectancy and literacy, and were forced into a smaller footprint because of the oil embargo,” says Wackernagel. “But they are now economically more successful, and will tend to use more resources.”
Critics point out that EF calculations do not take into account issues such as pollution from certain toxic chemicals, and place too much reliance on others, such as carbon footprints, which may be alleviated by the invention of new technologies. Even so, “it’s a broad indicator of the direction things are moving, and it’s an excellent tool for communicating to the public and decision makers,” says Jan Vernon, who reviewed the validity of EF for the UK government.
The study, therefore, carries a credible message: we have all moved away from sustainability, and the world has entered ecological overshoot. “We have not taken sustainable development seriously,” Wackernagel concludes.
"
New Scientist link
http://tinyurl.com/3bdju5
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/index.php
http://www.wwf.org.uk/researcher/issues/footprint/index.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index
Measuring sustainable development — Nation by nation (sciencedirect)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2007.08.017
and for more on this theme check out the fascinating documentary below,
The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
http://www.powerofcommunity.org/cm/index.php
http://globalpublicmedia.com/articles/657
|
View Full Comment Text
save preference
Comments (2 of 2)