Tag Archives: precaution

4.5/25 is the most dangerous statistic on the planet. It reveals a bloated truth, that the U.S. with just 4.5% of the world’s population consumes 25% of the world’s resources. This cannot and will not continue as India, China, Brazil, Russia etc make their increasing demands on global resources. A starting point for a global discussion on how to allocate resources more fairly in a world of limits comes from a policy tool developed by German economist Horst Siebert in 1982, which was popularized in Europe in the early 1990s and promoted by Friends of the Earth Netherlands as part of its ‘Action Plan Sustainable Netherlands’ and Friends of the Earth Europe’s ‘Sustainable Europe Campaign’. The tool has helped influence national policy in the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark. It is the concept of environmental space. The word comes from the Dutch milieugebruiks – ruimte (literally environmental utilization space).