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201204Mar17:31

New Eco2 Index pro­vides the right per­spec­tive on who is to blame!

Infor­ma­tion
pub­lished 04 March 2012 | mod­i­fied 04 March 2012
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The recently devel­oped Eco2 Index sheds a dif­fer­ent light on how healthy the globe’s nations are. The new rank­ing sys­tem mon­i­tors the extent of which coun­tries dam­age their ecosys­tems in an effort to build up their economies. In other words it mea­sures the over­all eco­nomic and eco­log­i­cal health of the countries.

The team of the Uni­ver­sity of British Colum­bia that devel­oped the new index, worked together with the Global Foot­print Net­work to com­pile a list of good and bad coun­tries based on this index.

The Eco2 Index builds upon the Club of Rome pub­li­ca­tion of 1972, updated in 2004, called Lim­its to Growth. The dif­fer­ent sce­nar­ios pre­sented in this pub­li­ca­tion did give a warn­ing about mankind head­ing for an extreme over­ex­ploita­tion of planet Earth’s resources. Though warned, we now are in global eco­log­i­cal over­shoot accord­ing the Global Foot­print Net­work. Today human­ity uses the equiv­a­lent of 1.5 plan­ets to pro­vide the resources we use and absorb our waste. This means it now takes the Earth one year and six months to regen­er­ate what we use in a year. Based on the eco­log­i­cal foot­print the Eco2 Index shows that some high-​income coun­tries are the least healthy and that many low-​income coun­tries are in bet­ter shape. How killing growth can be!

Our actions today may have even greater con­se­quences later on. It is con­cern­ing that both our finan­cial and eco­log­i­cal secu­rity are deteriorating

Unfor­tu­nately, the eco­log­i­cal foot­print of most of the rich coun­tries extends beyond their own bound­aries. They affect other coun­tries’ eco­log­i­cal foot­print too. Canada, for instance, pro­duces oil for other nations that, in turn, feel the effects of air pol­lu­tion and fuel consumption.


So, while many high-​income coun­tries have sta­ble economies, they rank among the least healthy on the eco­log­i­cal index. Over­all, the index shows decreas­ing scores over the past decade as a result of deple­tion of resources on which human life and bio­di­ver­sity depend. Think­ing of short-​term pur­poses only, and for­get­ting about long-​term sus­tain­abil­ity of planet Earth.

The Eco2 index give offi­cials a final warn­ing, and a need to plan for a bet­ter future.

The rank­ings accord­ing the Eco2 Index

The best 5 coun­tries:

1. Bolivia
2. Angola
3. Namibia
4. Paraguay
5. Argentina

The worst 5 coun­tries:

1. Sin­ga­pore
2. Kuwait
3. Israel
4. Korea
5. United Arab Emirates

The G8 coun­tries:

1. Canada (15th)
2. Rus­sia (31st)
3. France (77)
4. United States (103)
5. Ger­many (119)
6. United King­dom (129)
7. Italy (135)
8. Japan (144)

(Sources: Global News, 20.02.2012; Envi­ron­ment News Ser­vice, 21.02.2012; Global Foot­print Net­work)


UN Biodiversity decade
WWF Stop Wildlife Crime
Fight for Flight campaign
End Ivory-funded Terrorism
Support Rewilding Europe
NASA State of Flux

Goal: 7000 tigers in the wild

Tiger range countries map

Tiger map” (CC BY 2.5) by Sander­son et al., 2006.

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