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Loading...Top 10 Countries Killing the Planet
- Melissa Breyer
- May 11, 2010
- 5:01 pm
- 563 comments
“The environmental crises currently gripping the planet are the corollary of excessive human consumption of natural resources. There is considerable and mounting evidence that elevated degradation and loss of habitats and species are compromising ecosystems that sustain the quality of life for billions of people worldwide,” says Corey Bradshaw, leader of a new study by the University of Adelaide’s Environment Institute in Australia that has ranked most of the world’s countries for their environmental impact.
The study, Evaluating the Relative Environmental Impact of Countries, uses seven indicators of environmental degradation: natural forest loss, habitat conversion, marine captures, fertilizer use, water pollution, carbon emissions and species threat. Unlike existing rankings, this study deliberately avoided human health and economic data, and instead focused on environmental impact only. Other variables–bushmeat harvest, coral reef habitat quality, seagrass loss, freshwater habitat degradation, illegal fishing, invertebrate threat patterns, and some forms of greenhouse gas emission–were excluded due to a lack of country-specific data.
Two rankings were created: a “proportional” environmental impact ranking, where impact is measured against total resource availability, and an “absolute” environmental impact ranking which measures total environmental degradation at a global scale. Listed here are the top ten worst offending countries for absolute environmental impact, those that are just doing the most damage, regardless of per capita calculations.
The study, in collaboration with the National University of Singapore and Princeton University, found that the total wealth of a country was the most important driver of environmental impact. “We correlated rankings against three socio-economic variables (human population size, gross national income and governance quality) and found that total wealth was the most important explanatory variable the richer a country, the greater its average environmental impact,” Professor Bradshaw said. “There is a theory that as wealth increases, nations have more access to clean technology and become more environmentally aware so that the environmental impact starts to decline. This wasn’t supported,” he added.
Read more: Animal Rights, Conservation, Nature, Nature & Wildlife, News & Issues
Melissa Breyer
Melissa Breyer is a writer and editor with a background in sustainable living, specializing in food, science and design. She is the co-author of True Food (National Geographic) and has edited and written for regional and international books and periodicals, including The New York Times Magazine. Melissa lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
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Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
people are talking
If you can't make yourself happy then don't expect someone else to do it.
very heartwarming..........thank you !
SOOOOO CUUUUUTE!!!!!
Thank you for sharing. Many of the recipes I am going to try.
Grazie
563 comments
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Isn't it sad that this list isn't printed on the front page of every newspaper on the planet?
I wonder of there is a single newspaper which would have the courage to print it? Maybe I should print it off and send it to a few and see what happens. I suspect it would be classified as a "Too hot to handle" article. Our media are so gutless and so swayed by what the big advertisers want to see printed. And, Sabina, I am not at all surprised about Australia - I half expected it to be higher up the list actually. We are clearing virgin forest for b..... paper pulp at a rate not much slower than Brazil is devastating the Amazon. Why can't the morons grow quick growing forest to chop down for pulp? Maybe loggers don't have the brains to learn how to plant trees.
Shame on us!!
That was really interesting!
We all participate it this!!!
I was hoping to see USA on top, because it oftenly gets 1st place in many fields..
But Brazil?
That was really interesting!
By the way, China is #1 in CO2 emissions.
I seem to think south american countries may have been judged more harshly since they had the most valuable and plentiful resources to begin with, so the destruction seems relatively worse.
Surprised about australia!thank u it was interesting to know)
I am so glad that that the UK is not in this league.
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