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Study: Humans overtaxing the Earth - June 25, 2002



WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The consumption of forests, energy and land by humans is exceeding the rate at which Earth can replenish itself, according to research published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Wait, something's missing from this story. Ah, here it is:



...Wackernagel and his team found that in 1999, each person consumed an average of 5.7 acres (2.3 hectares). The global average was significantly lower than industrialized countries such as the United States and United Kingdom where 24 acres (9.6 hectares) and 13.3 acres (5.3 hectares), respectively, were consumed per person.
I knew there had to be an anti-West slam in there somewhere!



Never mind that the US exports much of what it produces, especially food (and in the case of food, the amount of farmland shrinks while food production increases). Adding that in will spoil the message, that this entire "ecological footprint" notions is nonsense.

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