New research by WWF shows that "humans currently consume 20% more natural resources than the earth can produce" resulting in destruction of key ecological assets such as groundwater, fisheries and forests. This displays inequalities in the "ecological footprint"– a measure of people’s natural resource consumption. The "footprint" of an average North American is twice that of a European and seven times that of the average Asian or African. A key opportunity is development of innovative models, especially to address energy use.

Read the "Living Planet Report 2004". October, 2004.

For more Environment data, please visit the Boston Indicators Project 2002 Environment home page.