History
Academic work on calculations of the Ecological Debt came later. A remarkable article with the title "The debt of nations and the distribution of ecological impacts from human activities" was published by U. Thara Srinivasan et al. (from Berkeley) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2008, 105(5):1768-1773.
Studies were produced at regional level also. For instance, S. Khatua and W. Stanley, "Ecological Debt: a case study from Orissa, India" (2006) http://www.ecologicaldebt.org/publicaciones/Chapter5(125-168).pdf
Some government officials from developing countries have argued - at meetings on Climate Change - that the principle of shared responsibility demands that rich nations go beyond donations or adaptation credits and make reparations that recognize an ecological debt for excessive emissions over several decades. The top US ambassador to the COP in Copenhagen in December 2009, Todd Stern, flatly rejected arguments by diplomats from poor lands that the United States owed such a debt. (A.C.Reukin & T. Zeller, New York Times, 9 Dec. 2009).
Ecological Debt has been used to describe the consumption of resources from within an ecosystem that exceeds the system's regenerative capacity. This is seen in particular in non-renewable resources wherein consumption outstrips production. In a general sense, it can be used refer to the overall depletion of global resources beyond the Earth's ability to regenerate them. The concept in this sense is based on the bio-physical carrying capacity of an ecosystem; through measuring ecological footprints human society can determine the rate at which it is depleting natural resources. Ultimately, the imperative of sustainability requires human society to live within the means of the ecological system to support life over the long term. Ecological debt is a feature of unsustainable economic systems.
Read more about this topic: Ecological Debt
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
—G.M. (George Macaulay)
“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)