New WorldWatch Institute Report

I managed to read the salient features of the WW report. The document makes a number of interesting points worth noting:

a) It costs less to clean up the world than to pollute it.
According to the Stern report to the UK government the climate impact of the business as usual economic activity over the 21st century ranged from 5% (direct) of global GDP to 20% (indirect costs), while the cost of climate action is only 1%.

b) The loss in biodiversity over the last 50 years has been phenomenal with species extinction rates increasing by 50 to 500 times.
39 countries experienced a decline of 5% or more in wealth when bio diversity loss, resource depletion, carbon damage were taken into account.

c) Income distribution is considerbaly more skewed than before.
The UN development report indicated that the combined income of the world's 500 richest people was about the same as the world's 416 million poorest people.

And it also points out that building a low carbon economy is the central economic challenge of our age.

More later.