Guardian UK: Consumption dwarfs population as main environmental threat

[marmar]

Consumption dwarfs population as main environmental threat
A small portion of the world's people use up most of the earth's resources and produce most of its greenhouse gas emissions, writes Fred Pearce. From Yale Environment 360, part of Guardian Environment Network


It's the great taboo, I hear many environmentalists say. Population growth is the driving force behind our wrecking of the planet, but we are afraid to discuss it.

It sounds like a no-brainer. More people must inevitably be bad for the environment, taking more resources and causing more pollution, driving the planet ever farther beyond its carrying capacity. But hold on. This is a terribly convenient argument — "over-consumers" in rich countries can blame "over-breeders" in distant lands for the state of the planet. But what are the facts?

The world's population quadrupled to six billion people during the 20th century. It is still rising and may reach 9 billion by 2050. Yet for at least the past century, rising per-capita incomes have outstripped the rising head count several times over. And while incomes don't translate precisely into increased resource use and pollution, the correlation is distressingly strong.

Moreover, most of the extra consumption has been in rich countries that have long since given up adding substantial numbers to their population.

By almost any measure, a small proportion of the world's people take the majority of the world's resources and produce the majority of its pollution. Take carbon dioxide emissions — a measure of our impact on climate but also a surrogate for fossil fuel consumption. Stephen Pacala, director of the Princeton Environment Institute, calculates that the world's richest half-billion people — that's about 7 percent of the global population — are responsible for 50 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile the poorest 50 percent are responsible for just 7 percent of emissions. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/15/consumption-versus-population-environmental-impact

[NashVegas]

1. And Nicolas Negroponte Wants a Laptop For Every Child

So they can be propagandized and programmed like Americans.

[vinylsolution]

2. The Optimum Population Trust web site....

.... has some great information on this.

See it http://www.optimumpopulation.org">here.

[kestrel91316]

3. Cutting back on lifestyle only gets us just so far with our footprint.

Our population is unsustainable as it is, regardless of how much we cut back.

ZPG won't do it. We need NPG to get us down to 1 billion, for everyone to have a decent standard of living.

I just finished reading Radical Simplicity by Jim Merkel. Not feeling very optimistic.

[The2ndWheel]

4. 4 choices

1)More people, more consumption
2)More people, less consumption
3)Less people, more consumption
4)Less people, less consumption

Now, we won't just let everyone die today. So we'll have more consumption before we have less people. To raise the standard of living so that people have fewer children requires more consumption. Then when we get to the point where we have fewer people, we won't be able to keep the infrastructure and luxuries going that we've become accustomed to with fewer people, so we'll need to either consume more or have more people.

I'd say #4 is what would happen if we became a part of nature again, and not apart from it. #1 is what would happen if we keep doing what we've been doing. #2 and #3 are sort of the in between phases. If you have more people, you'll eventually end up with more consumption. If you have fewer people, you'll eventually end up with less consumption. It's a shame there isn't a #2.5 in there, where there would be enough people, and enough consumption. Such an option would be putting an end to change, which isn't going to happen even if you wanted it to.

[hunter]

5. You think Nature will give us a choice?

What makes us so special? Population explosions like those of humans are common throughout the history of life, and they ALWAYS get smacked down to sustainable levels when they overshoot the limits of their environment.

The only choice we have is how we accomplish #4. We can let Nature do the dirty work, killing us of in the usual ways: starvation, disease, etc., and by the human improvisations of war and genocide, or we can figure out how to accomplish #4 gracefully in a way that lifts up those living in poverty and very significantly reduces the consumption of the wealthy.

I think here in the United States most of us could live better with less... we simply have to learn how to do it.

[The2ndWheel]

6. No, since we can't escape physical reality

I do think that we'll try to do everything we can to keep doing #1 though. We've been fairly successful at doing that. We're not going to stop voluntarily. We want to harness solar and wind power on large scales. That isn't stopping #1. We'll end up with plenty of environmental problems with green energy too. They will be different than what we have today, but we don't get to escape physical reality.