Swedes, symbolized here by a group of scouts celebrating spring, know ourselves as a nature loving country. But globally, our consumption requires more resources than most of us are aware of. Photo: Bengt-re (CC: By)
No, this is not about the increasing weight of Swedes, even if that has been a discussed topic lately (article in Swedish, but with interesting graphics, and can be auto translated here). The thing is rather that Sweden is used to seeing itself among the top ten in listings of green countries. But this week we came pretty high up on a list which isn’t as flattering as the others.
Every year the World Wide Fund for nature, WWF, publishes their Living Planet Report , which gives an idea about the state of the planet.
To sum up what most of us already know: It isn’t very happy reading.
The global diversity of species have shrunk with almost 30 percent globally since the 1970:s. Right now the Earth’s increasing number of inhabitants are together using 50 percent more resources than the Earth can renew every year. This means we would need two planets to maintain the current lifestyle of everyone. But putting the blame equally on every single person’s shoulders on the globe isn’t fair, since the difference in cinsumption is huge between rich and poor countries.
That’s why WWF choses to use what is called ecological footprint.This is a measurement of how much of the Earth’s productive surface we use through our consumption, and it varies a lot between different countries.
The average human on Earth uses about 2,7 hectares of land for their consumption. The average person in Qatar, however, requires about 11,6 hectares to sustain his or her lifestyle, while in Sri Lanka it is down at about 1,2 hectares per person. And the footprints keep getting bigger in the rich countries and smaller in the poor ones.
Sweden, with its 5,7 global hectares used per persons, achieves a 13:th place in this race. It’s far from worst, but still about the double of the average person on Earth – and a lifestyle that would require three whole planets if everyone were to live like us.
Maybe the conclusion of this should be that having what is considered a high living standard is still tightly connected to a high use of resources, either we want it or not. And that’s an equation we will have to keep on trying to solve, in Sweden and elsewhere.
