VISION 2
Already, as a result of human presence and impact around the world, natural systems and the services they provide (filtration of water, soil production, recycling of CO2 into breathable oxygen by green plants, climatic regulation, wetlands that protect our coast lines from storm surges – to name a few...) are stressed to dangerous levels or are disappearing altogether.
Worldwide: forests, the earth's crutch of biodiversity and oxygen production, are disappearing at a rate of 54,000 square miles (140,000 km2) per year[2]; deserts are advancing at the rate of 23,400 square miles (60,000 km2) per year; ocean populations of fish, shrimp and other edible crustaceans are being depleted faster than they can naturally replenish; more than half of the world's wetlands have disappeared in the last 100 years, vanquishing to human development and rising sea levels; human activity is causing the premature extinction of thousands of species around the world[2]; dependence on fossil fuels for energy are contributing to raising world air and water temperatures – if current trends continue world temperatures could rise up to 10.8°F (6°C) by 2100[3], a change that would carry with it cataclysmic ramifications for all life on the planet.[4]
