METODY HODNOCENÍ VYUŽITÍ PŘÍRODNÍCH ZDROJŮ A PRODUKTIVITA VYUŽITÍ TĚCHTO ZDROJŮ

Evaluation methods for natural - sources exploitation and productivity of their exploitation

Metody hodnocení využití přírodních zdrojů a produktivita využití těchto zdrojů

Čestmír Halbich

Adresa autora:

Ing. Čestmír Halbich,CSc., Česká zemědělská univerzita v Praze, Provozně-ekonomická fakulta, katedra informačních technologií, e-mail halbich@pef.czu.cz

Anotace:

V příspěvku je úvodem charakterizována současná situace v čerpání přírodních zdrojů v mezinárodním srovnání. Jsou uvedeny dvě metody hodnocení čerpání těchto zdrojů: ekologická stopa a ekologický prostor. Dále jsou diskutovány některé možnosti snížení čerpání přírodních zdrojů na osobu, neboť vyspělé země čerpají tyto zdroje nadměrně. Na závěr jsou uvedeny některé možné směry zvýšení efektivity využití přírodních zdrojů cestou dokonalejšího využití informací v netradičních oblastech uspokojování potřeb člověka.

Summary:

In this contribution there is, in the introduction, a characterisation of a contemporary situation in the area of exploitation natural sources in an international comparison. Two evaluation methods for exploitation of these sources are mentioned: ecological footprint and ecological space. Further, some possibilities of the decreasing of exploitation the natural sources per capita are discussed, because industrial countries overload these sources. In the conclusion, some possible trends in increasing the effectivity of exploitation the natural sources by way of a more perfect usage of information in the unusual spheres of satisfying the mans needs are mentioned.

Klíčová slova:

ekologická stopa, ekologický prostor, virtuální realita

Key words:

ecological footprint, ecological space, virtual reality

Introduction

People depend on nature for the supply of food, energy and fibre, the absorption of waste products and other life-support services. If we are to continue to have good living conditions, we must ensure that nature's productivity isn't used more quickly than it can be renewed, and that waste isn't discharged more quickly than nature can absorb it. The ecological footprint is one of accounting tools for ecological resources. Categories of human consumption are translated into areas of productive land required to provide resources and assimilate waste products. The ecological footprint is a measure of how sustainable our life-styles are.

The Canadian concept of ecological footprints or the European concept of ecological space refers to the amount of productive land required to support the lifestyle of an individual, a nation or an industry. The Canadian concept has been well developed and tested in a numerical sense and is defined as the area of productive soils needed to supply our food, paper products, urban area and assimilate the waste products generated by our consumption patterns. For the average Canadian lifestyle this approximates to 4.2 hectares per person. The concept can be further expanded by analysing the consumption patterns of different income groups in society and shows that family incomes of $100,000 per year in Canada have ecological footprints in excess of 12 hectares per person. When the ecological space concept is applied to The Netherlands, we can note that Netherlands agriculture uses for consumption and export, an area seven time the area of cultivated land within its own borders.

International comparison of ecological footprints

This table compares the ecological impact of 52 large nations, inhabited by 80 percent of the world

Table: Ecological footprint of nations - For each country, this table lists its 1997 population, ecological footprint, available ecological capacity and ecological deficit. The last three are provided on a per capita basis. The ecological deficit is calculated by subtracting the footprint from the available ecological capacity. Negative numbers indicate a deficit, positive numbers show the still existing remaining ecological capacity. If you want to know a nations total ecological footprint, multiply the per capita data by the countrys population.

population. Some authors say that we are victims of a pervasive cultural myth that a diminished economy equals deprivation. With some assistance from human ingenuity, the ecosphere can produce material adequacy for all. It would be foolhardy to underestimate the difficulty associated with lowering the material expectations of today's consumer society. If the basic message of Ecological Footprint analysis is true, sustainable development will require a transformation far beyond anything the political process has been willing to contemplate. To those who say that any such vision is economically impractical and politically unrealistic, we can only respond that the prevailing vision is ecologically destructive and morally bankrupt (to say nothing of potentially lethal).

No doubt human beings also have a competitive side and both natural and sociocultural selection have historically favoured those individuals and cultures that have been most successful in commandeering resources and exploiting the bounty of nature. Today, of course, humankind has become a global culture, one increasingly driven by a philosophy of competitive expansionism, one which is subduing and consuming the Earth.

Individual life-style choices have a strong influence on the ecological footprint. These choices include housing, transport, food, energy and water consumption, and other non-consumptive goods. For example, compare how much ecologically productive land is necessary to commute by bicycle, bus or car. Most of the car's land is required to absorb CO2. Most the biker's land is required to provide the extra food for quenching the biker's.

We have various choices affect the size of our Footprints. People who live in cities, for example, have relatively low housing and transport footprints. Apartment buildings use 50 percent less heat than free-standing units of same floor space. An energy efficient car can reduce your transport footprint by a factor of three, taking a bus by a factor of five, riding a bicycle by a factor of 12. Eating less meat and buying less processed and packaged food decreases your food footprint by a factor of three. A tomato grown in a heated greenhouse with artificial fertiliser and pesticides has 10-20 times the footprint of an organic tomato grown in an open field.

Conclusion

The first step toward reducing our ecological impact is to recognise that the “environmental crisis” is less an environmental and technical problem than it is a behavioural and social one. It can therefore be resolved only with the help of behavioural and social solutions. On a finite planet, at human carrying capacity, a society driven mainly by selfish individualism has all the potential for sustainability of a collection of angry scorpions in a bottle. Certainly human beings are competitive organisms but they are also cooperative social beings. Indeed, it is no small irony (but one that seems to have escaped many policy advisors today) that some of the most economically and competitively successful societies have been the most internally cooperative those with the greatest stocks of cultural and social capital. Some information human needs can be satisfied by exploitation of virtual reality [1], computer games and other information systems.

Indeed, we believe that confronting together the reality of ecological overshoot will force us to discover and exercise those special qualities that distinguish humans from other sentient species, to become truly human. In this sense, global ecological change may well represent our last great opportunity to prove that there really is intelligent life on Earth.

References:

[1] HALBICH, Č.: Virtual organisation and other engineerig methods, pp. 39-43, In Proceedings of conference System acceses 97, VŠE Praha 1997, ISBN 80-7079-333 (in czech language)

[2] United Nations, 1995. 1993 International Trade Statistics Yearbook. Vol. 1. New York: Department for Economic and Social Information and Policy Analysis, Statistical Division

[3] The Earth Council for the Rio+5 Forum, Rio de Janeiro 1997.