Vital Signs 1997: A Year of Disturbing Contrasts

HOLD FOR RELEASE
6:00 PM EST
Saturday, May 24, 1997

The year 1996 was one of sharp, and sometimes disturbing, contrasts, Worldwatch researchers today announced. Income per person climbed to a new high, but the gap between rich and poor widened. Grain harvests set a new record, while carryover stocks of grain dropped to an all-time low. Population growth slowed in some countries because of falling fertility, in others because of rising mortality.

The production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) fell, while carbon emissions continued to climb. The manufacture of CFCs, the family of chemicals that is depleting the stratospheric ozone layer, has been declining for nearly a decade, setting the stage for the eventual healing of the ozone layer. Meanwhile, carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning climbed to a new high, laying the groundwork for a future of summers far hotter than any since agriculture began.

These are among the top findings reported in the sixth annual edition of Vital Signs 1997: The Environmental Trends That Are Shaping Our Future, a report on more than forty global environmental, economic, social, and military indicators. "We live in a world awash in statistics. Yet, while economic trends are regularly reported, the state of the natural world -- whether it be the decline of coral reefs or the comeback of Zimbabwe's elephants -- is rarely charted. In Vital Signs 1997, our researchers seek to fill some of those gaps," says Worldwatch President Lester Brown.

The use of virtually every source of energy expanded in 1996, reports Senior Vice President Christopher Flavin. The fastest growing was wind energy at 26 percent. The slowest was nuclear power at just under 1 percent.

The burning of both oil and coal expanded at 2 percent in 1996, well below the 4.5 percent for natural gas, the other fossil fuel. With demand for oil running strong, prices rose above $20 a barrel, the highest since the Gulf War in 1991.

The use of natural gas is now rising throughout the world. Growth is particularly strong in Europe where gas is replacing coal for both electricity generation and residential use.

The 26 percent growth in wind power in 1996 pushed total generating capacity over 6,000 megawatts. As in the preceding year, Germany led the world in new generating capacity, followed by India. In Denmark, the world's leading supplier of wind turbines, wind now accounts for 5 percent of the country's electrical generating capacity.

The manufacture of photovoltaic cells, the world's second fastest growing energy source, expanded by 16 percent in 1996. Initially, solar cells were used only to power the communication satellites that relay signals in the rapidly growing global electronic network, and then later in pocket calculators. Now they provide electricity to some 400,000 homes, most of them in remote villages that are not linked to a central power grid.

Vital Signs, which is funded by the Surdna Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, and the United Nations Population Fund, notes that given the growth in the burning of oil, coal, and gas in 1996, it comes as no surprise that carbon emissions from their burning climbed to 6.25 billion tons, an all-time high. This 3 percent jump made the goal of stabilizing the earth's climate even more difficult.

Since the industrial revolution, atmospheric CO2 levels have risen from an estimated 280 parts per million to 362 parts per million, the highest in 150,000 years. Given this rise in atmospheric levels of CO2, a greenhouse gas, it comes as no surprise to meteorologists that the earth is getting warmer.

The year 1996 was the fourth warmest since recordkeeping began in 1866. The 13 warmest years on record have occurred since 1979, with the four warmest coming during the nineties.

Higher temperatures of surface water, particularly in the tropics and subtropics, mean more heat is released into the atmosphere. Scientists believe that this may be making storm systems more frequent, more intense, and more destructive. Weather-related insurance claims during the eighties totalled $17 billion. Thus far during the nineties, they have totalled $66 billion.

Deeply concerned about this rise, some 60 of the world's largest insurance companies signed a statement in 1996 urging governments to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning.

One reason for rising CO2 emissions is the growing use of automobiles, says the report. World automobile output in 1996 totalled 36 million vehicles, enough to expand the global fleet to 496 million vehicles. As temperatures rise, urban traffic congestion spreads and air pollution worsens, the social and environmental costs of growing reliance on the automobile are escalating.

In the United States, the traffic congestion price tag for wasted fuel, rising health care costs associated with air pollution, and lost productivity totals an estimated $100 billion. In Bangkok, one of the world's most congested cities, the typical motorist spends the equivalent of 44 working days each year sitting in traffic jams.

One response of societies to these automotive nightmares is to turn to bicycles. In 1995, bicycle factories worldwide turned out an estimated 109 million bicycles. China, with an output of 41 million bicycles, was far and away the world leader. India, now in second place with more than 12 million bicycles assembled, is emerging as a bicycle power. In Asia, where more than half the world's people live, the use of bicycles dwarfs that of automobiles.

Many European cities, such as Amsterdam, are fostering the use of bicycles. Copenhagen provides free bicycles for use in the city. In the European Union, bicycles have been included for the first time in the comprehensive transportation plan. The United Kingdom has developed a plan to quadruple bicycle use by the year 2012.

Crop-withering heat waves in 1995 helped drop world carryover stocks of grain in 1996 to 51 days of consumption, the lowest level on record, the report notes. This in turn raised wheat and corn prices to all-time highs in the spring of 1996, double the level of a year earlier. This temporary doubling of prices reflects the loss of momentum during the 1990s in the growth of the grain harvest as water scarcity spread, as the response to the use of additional fertilizer diminished in many countries, and as Asia suffered heavy losses of cropland to industrialization.

One reason for mounting pressure on the world's grain resources is the growing demand for meat. Between 1950 and 1996, the production of meat increased more than four times, from 44 million tons to 195 million tons. Of the four principal meats--beef, pork, poultry, and mutton-- pork is the most widely consumed. The production of poultry eclipsed that of beef in 1996, moving it into the number two spot, after pork. The jump in grain prices in 1996 slowed growth in meat production to 2 percent in 1996, down from 4 percent the year before.

After a slow start in the early 1990s, the world economy has grown much faster in recent years. After increasing less than 4 percent from 1990 to 1993, the economy has expanded more than 11 percent during the last 3 years.

Perhaps the most important contrast in the global economy in 1996 was between the industrial and developing countries. The latter grew an average of 6.3 percent in 1996, roughly three times the growth rate of the industrial countries. The growth in the global output of goods and services during the decade from 1986 to 1996 totalled nearly $7 trillion, exceeding the total growth in economic output from the beginning of agriculture until 1950.

The global economy is expanding at a robust rate, but the ecosystems on which it depends are not expanding at all, creating numerous unsustainable relationships. The demand for seafood is exceeding the sustainable yield of fisheries. The grazing needs of the world's herds of cattle and flocks of sheep and goats are outpacing the sustainable yield of grasslands. Forests are shrinking as the demand for firewood, lumber, and newsprint continues to grow. Aquifers are being depleted as the demand for water exceeds the recharge rate.

Another sign that the economy is outgrowing its ecosystems is found in the growing number of plant and animal species that are threatened with extinction. Nowhere is this more evident than in the world's 232 non-human primate species, a fifth of which are now threatened. The number of humans now exceeds the total population of the other 232 primate species combined. As human numbers go up, the population of other primates falls. The decline has been particularly rapid for the great apes, our closest relatives.

On the plus side, Vital Signs 1997 reports that the annual addition to world population fell from a peak of 87 million in 1990 to 80 million in 1996. In percentage terms, the growth rate peaked at 2.2 percent in 1965 and now stands at 1.4 percent in 1996.

The decline in population growth has come in part because of faster than projected declines in fertility in some key countries, such as India, Bangladesh, and Brazil. The bad news is that part of the slower growth is due to rising mortality.

In several African countries, newly available data on AIDS deaths suggest that it is slowing population growth. Worldwide, an estimated 5.6 million new HIV cases--a record-- brought the number of infections since the disease was first identified in 1982 to 36 million in 1996. The number of AIDS fatalities in 1996 climbed to 1.7 million, also a record.

In the former Soviet republics, population growth is slowing as death rates rise due to a breakdown in health care services, heavy smoking, and heavy consumption of alcohol. Life expectancy for men in Russia has dropped from 64 in 1990 to 57 in 1995, lower than in some developing countries. Meanwhile, the birth rate has been falling, with the result that Russia's population is shrinking by nearly 1 million, or 0.6 percent a year--the fastest decline ever recorded in an industrial society.

The number of men and women in military uniforms is dropping steadily, reports Senior Researcher Michael Renner. In 1995, the last year for which data are available, it totalled 23 million, down one fifth from the historical peak of 28.7 million in 1988.

A similar trend has emerged with armaments. The number of battle tanks deployed worldwide declined from 172,000 in 1993 to 119,000 in 1996. Meanwhile, the number of active combat aircraft dropped from 40,000 to 31,000.

For some countries, disarmament is not enough. Four countries now have no army at all: Costa Rica, which disbanded its army in 1949, has been joined by Iceland and, most recently, by Panama and Haiti, when the U.S. military overthrew their military dictatorships. Still more countries are considering disbanding their armies.

Vital Signs 1997: The Environmental Trends That Are Shaping Our Future, published by W.W. Norton & Co., in New York, is scheduled for release 6 p.m. EST, Saturday, May 24, 1997. In the United Kingdom, Vital Signs will be available from Earthscan Publishers. Vital Signs is published in 19 languages.