Human Impact on Global Environment
Saw the article below on Truthout, a great progressive news resource. Our collective impact on the planet grows ever more significant and grave. Interestingly, one of our web design clients, Bruce Bratton, a local columnist/commentator whose column now appears exclusively through his web site, BrattonOnline.com, has added a new feature, Land Use Reports from Gary Patton, who is Director of Strategic Planning and Policy Initiatives at LandWatch Monterey County and will soon be director of the Planning and Conservation League in Sacramento.
Report: World Land Use Is Top Environmental Issue
World Business Council for Sustainable Development
Tuesday 09 August 2005
The massive conversion of the world’s natural landscapes to agriculture and other human uses may soon begin to undermine the capacity of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain a burgeoning human population.
Writing July 22, 2005 in the journal Science, a group of leading scientists portrays the escalating transformation of the world’s forests, wetlands, savannahs, waterways and other native landscapes as the biggest potential threat to human health and global sustainability.
“Short of a collision with an asteroid, land use by humans is the most significant impact on the world’s biosphere,” according to Jonathan A. Foley, a UW-Madison climatologist and the lead author of the Science paper. “It may be the single most pressing environmental issue of our day.”
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