We are heading for a global environmental credit crunch

The United States is under immediate pressure to produce an endorsable bailout plan––or, as the White House has termed it, a “rescue plan” as an attempt to save their nation from the current credit crunch threatening their economy.

Credit crunches occur when investment capital is difficult to obtain due to a shrinking credit supply or a willingness to lend. This usually falls in concordance to a recession, and some are worried Canada may soon see a similar fate.

Although this credit crunch may pose a legitimate threat to many livelihoods and pensions, there is another crunch we have much greater reason to fear. We are in the midst of a credit crunch that threatens not only the economy of every country, but also the fate of thousands, if not millions of species, including our own. Our actions, largely driven by the capitalist market, are depleting Earth’s resource bank at unprecedented rates, causing a shrinking supply of Earth’s resource capital: a global environmental credit crunch.

Our overconsumptive behaviour has impacted this planet enormously. Assessment studies have shown that over half of Earth’s biomes have experienced a 20-50 percent conversion to human use. By 2025, fresh water, once considered an abundant resource, will be a scarce commodity to over three-quarters of the world’s people.

Fish stocks have seen a significant reduction, with around 75 percent of the world's fish species either fully exploited or overexploited, some of which have collapsed past the point of return. Our energy-intensive lifestyles will soon take us past the tipping point of peak oil, and by fuelling our appetite for energy, we have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide to a level higher than it has been for 650,000 years.

As we take more than our share from Earth’s resource bank, our actions are fundamentally and irreversibly altering the diversity of life on Earth. Currently, the documented rate of extinction of birds, mammals and amphibians is 100 times higher than background (normal) rates. It is estimated that 23 percent of the world’s mammals and 32 percent of amphibians are currently threatened with extinction, making us responsible for the sixth mass extinction on Earth.

As renowned scientist and author Paul Ehrlich puts it, asking why we need to be concerned with biodiversity is like asking why we have to be concerned about the future of our civilization––the two are fully intertwined. Our economy relies heavily on Earth’s resources and services; without functional and diverse ecosystems our economy would not exist, and nor likely would we.

As it stands, the global economy is destroying its own ecological base. This is a critical market failure, and one that must be promptly addressed.

There are two very distinct approaches we can take in response to this failure. We can follow our current course and dig deeper into the resource bank, struggling to sustain our population as the planet degrades around us. Alternatively, we can redefine our market and consumer-driven world, reexamining what we do, and how we do it. This will require a rescue plan that is far too immense for a one-time several hundred billion dollar bailout, but that is not to say it is unachievable.

Communities and organizations around the world are beginning to rise to the challenge, introducing initiatives to become more sustainable. Collectively, we must take responsibility for this environmental crunch and devise a global rescue movement, for it is much more than our economy at stake.

Charlotte Argue is a Green Building Coordinator for Wisa Healthy Homes.