The United States population is expected to pass 300 million before the end of 2006. Although constituting only five percent of the global population, the U.S. emits more carbon dioxide, consumes more paper and other forest products, and produces more municipal waste than any other country. A new report by the Center for Environment and Population (CEP) quantitatively demonstrates the relationship between current national population trends, unprecedented resource consumption, and observable environmental degradation.

The U.S. National Report on Population and the Environment is the first effort to bring together a wealth of statistics on national population and demographic dynamics and assess them in the context of environmental health. Using a variety of data sources, including the EarthTrends database, the report demonstrates links between phenomena such as rapid suburban sprawl, a shift from rural to urban living, and recent increases in coastal population densities, and their negative impacts on the environment, including habitat and species loss, increased water pollution, and climate change.

According to the author of the report, CEP Director Vicky Markham, the results of the study reveal what many acknowledge, but few respond to: the United States population's disproportionate consumption of the world's resources has had destructive environmental consequences both at a national and international level.

"Everyday we sit in traffic congestion, see less land around us, or that haze around our cities. Yet it stops there--rarely do we look beyond the surface, or even take responsibility. This report shows the science is in, and the trends are clear--the U.S. population, its growth and consumption, has strong links to our nation's environmental health."
--Vicky Markham, CEP Director

The unsustainable use of our natural resources has endangered the ability of ecosystems to provide humans with the goods and services we depend upon. There is also concern that we may not yet completely understand the full ramifications of our environmental impacts.

The CEP's key findings include:

• The U.S. is the only industrialized nation in the world experiencing significant population growth. This fact, combined in a new way in this report with data on America's high rates of resource consumption, shows how the nation has the largest per-capita environmental impact in the world.

• For the first time in its history the U.S. is a "metropolitan nation", shifting from being primarily rural to a primarily urban and suburban nation. Today, 4 out of 5 Americans live in metro areas, resulting in "sprawl" being the most predominant form of land-use change in the country. Overall, land is developed twice as fast as population growth.

• The report identifies the South and West--the nation's fastest growing and most populous regions (home to over half of all Americans today)--as being the nation's first "Population & Environment Hot Spots". Half of the nation's fastest growing states are in vulnerable coastal ecosystems in the South, and another four are in the driest Western areas.

RELATED LINKS:

EarthTrends environmental information on "consumption"

• UNDP Calls for a Global Action Plan on Water and Sanitation
• EarthTrends Podcast: Episode 2
• EarthTrends Database Updates, November 2006
• How U.S. State GHG Emissions Compare Internationally

• October 2006 Monthly Update: Fossil Fuel Consumption and its Implications
• September 2006 Monthly Update: Can a Green Revolution Catalyze African Development?
• August 2006 Monthly Update: Water Scarcity
• July 2006 Monthly Update: World Population Growth--Past, Present, and Future

• Ask EarthTrends: What is the Kyoto Protocol?
• Ask EarthTrends: Why are wetlands important ecosystems?
• Ask EarthTrends: What are the Millennium Development Goals?
• Ask Earthtrends: Where can I find information about aquaculture and its environmental impact?