Video of the Week: Sachs--State of the Planet Opening Address

Superb video. An absoloute must see. I was tempted to make it a video of the month and just hilight it again every week!

On the point of economic growth and our current use of resources Sachs points out that we are already consuming at a unsustainable level. He also points out that in the coming years the population is expected to grow by some 50% from 6.5 to 9 billion. If at the same time as this, economic growth allows the average world economy to catch up with the US, then over the next 45 years the throughput of material resources will increase 4, 5 or 6 times!

Sachs discusses issus as diverse as deforestation, climate change and exploitation of thw world marine life reserves:

Most of the fish we like are carnivors, so we fish the oceans to feed the
aquaculture. So we need good vegitarian, vegan fish, safely grown
through aquaculture which may give us our protein and our omega three's as well . And if you are watching the news you might have seen that transgenic pork will give us our omega threes as well, there are many options, but the current path is not viable if we want our oceans and if we want our rainforests. And we do want them because the effects, not just aesthetic or moral, will be devestating from many many points of view if we do loose them.

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