Overpopulation, overconsumption in pictures
Waves of humanity Sprawling Mexico City rolls across the landscape, displacing every scrap of natural habitat
If our species had started with just two people at the time of the earliest agricultural practices some 10,000 years ago, and increased by one percent per year, today humanity would be a solid ball of flesh many thousand light years in diameter, and expanding with a radial velocity that, neglecting relativity, would be many times faster than the speed of light.
Gabor Zovanyi
Photograph: Pablo Lopez Luz
British Columbia clear-cut Sometimes called the Brazil of the North, Canada has not been kind to its native forests as seen by clear-cut logging on Vancouver Island
Human domination over nature is quite simply an illusion, a passing dream by a naive species. It is an illusion that has cost us much, ensnared us in our own designs, given us a few boasts to make about our courage and genius, but all the same it is an illusion.
Donald Worster
Photograph: Garth Lentz
Trash waveIndonesian surfer Dede Surinaya catches a wave in a remote but garbage-covered bay on Java, Indonesia, the worlds most populated island
Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.
Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Photograph: Zak Noyle
Dead bird On Midway Atoll, far from the centres of world commerce, an albatross, dead from ingesting too much plastic, decays on the beach it is a common sight on the remote island
Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals the same fate awaits them both; as one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath. Ecclesiastes 3:19
Photograph: Chris Jordan
Oil wellsDepleting oil fields are yet another symptom of ecological overshoot as seen at the Kern River Oil Field in California
I dont understand why when we destroy something created by man we call it vandalism, but when we destroy something created by nature we call it progress.
Ed Begley, Jr.
Photograph: Mark Gamba/Corbis
more shots:
http://www.theguardian.com/global-d...opulation-over-consumption-in-pictures#img-10