That’s Mars’ Sister!

WILD FACTS SERIES

[Updated] Index of Human Impact on Nature (HIoN) March 2008

As of End March 2008, the MSRB-CASF Index of Human Impact on Nature (HIoN), an index for calculating the full impact of human consumption and activities on the Earth’s life support systems, stood at a terminally high level of 177.43, a rise of about 3.5 percent over the previous year. In other words, the full human impact including the ecological footprint and the damage inflicted on the living environment by his activities in the 12-month period ending March 2008 was 77.43 percent higher than the load which the planet’s ecosystems in their current state can cope with.

Components of HIoN

The HIoN Index integrates updated data and methodology used by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Report for Global Status of Provisioning, Regulating, and Cultural Ecosystem services.

Before and After [Top : Blue Marble composite images generated by NASA. Bottom (left), Mars from Hubble Space Telescope, (right) “Late spring on Mars” portrait taken with the HST Wide Field Planetary Camera-2 by NASA. Final composite image by FEWW.]

According to HIoN projections, our cities and population centers would become almost entirely unsustainable by as early as 2015.

 

Source: Index of Human Impact on Nature

Related Links:

• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities

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Are You a Dinosaur?

Top ten ways to know you are a dinosaur:

1. You and your partner, or other members of your species, have laid or intend to lay more than one or two eggs throughout your lifetime.

2. The overall numbers of your species are exponentially increasing.

3. Your consumption habits cause deforestation, habitat destruction and species extinction.

4. Have a larger ‘footprint’ than other animals.

5. Hoard too much stuff.

Tyrannosaurus: GNU Free Documentation License

6. Move around a lot.

7. Your dirt is getting bigger than the environment can absorb.

8. Commit cannibalism of same species eggs [aka, WAR.]

9. Instead of adapting to, you are destroying nature.

10. Using more energy and materials than the previous generations, therefore, you are regressing rather than evolving.

Related Links: Energy Dinosaurs

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