Factor 32 - Calculating the Rate of Consumption
World Fertility Rate Map
The current world population is approximately 6.5 billion people and growing. By or before 2050, that number will grow by almost 50% to 9 billion. With the availability of birth control and better education rates for women being higher in developed (industrial or post-industrial) nations, most of this increase is projected to come from the developing world–those nations that are just now making significant progress away from exclusively agrarian societies, and towards full industrialization.
And despite the prevalence of fatal diseases, civil wars, and high infant mortality rates (note: the US has the highest infant mortality rate of any developed country), most of these developing countries continue to show population increases–especially as more effective medicines and health education (via government and private sector programs) become available.
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This population growth, on the surface, would seem to be a matter of great concern. To be sure, it is indeed a concern in those countries as they seek to insure the survival needs of more and more people. But, as population and economic researchers have shown, population size alone is not the real problem; the real problem is the rate of consumption per capita. Put in this light, we immediately see a dramatic difference between first and third world populations.
The U.S.–being the largest importer and consumer of energy and raw materials–is the standard for per-capita consumption ratios. This is defined as the population divided by the per-capita consumption of raw materials (like oil and metals) and the generation of waste (like garbage and greenhouse gas emissions). Looking at these rates, and comparing them to, say, an African nation like Liberia, we find that the ratio is 32 to 1. In other words, the average American citizen consumes 32 times the energy (in all forms) and materials (and generates that much more waste) of a Liberian citizen (with a comparative consumption rate of 1).
A typical developed nation consumes hundreds of times more than that of a developing one. And the typical citizen in a developing nation produces vastly less carbon dioxide (i.e., a vastly lower carbon “footprint”) than someone from Great Britain, Germany, or the U.S.
One might imagine that people who live in these less-developed or developing nations might find our consumption rate rather excessive; you might envision them as becoming angered at such a huge disparity–especially as awareness grows (and climate change accelerates, which affects poor nations worse than rich ones). And you would be right. Some thinkers –like Jared Diamond (author of Guns, Germs, and Steel)–have suggested that this anger and resentment can and does manifest itself, in some cases, as terrorism against the West (partially obscured by the cloak of religion).
One benefit, globally speaking, from an economic downturn, is that people in industrialized nations start cutting back on consumption habits (like driving). Unfortunately, a global economic crisis will always hurt the developing nations the most (they have smaller economies and less wealth to shield the citizenry against hard times). And, it’s not simply a matter of time before these poorer nations catch up to us; industrial development takes enormous capital, and this, in an economic crisis, will dwindle–slowing down development and perhaps stoking third world resentment of first world privilege even more.
Additionally, many others have asserted that the developed world owes the developing world a mountainous debt–from centuries of economic exploitation and plunder, and more recently, from climate change induced by high levels of CO2 emissions in industrialized nations. In the past, few people recognized consumption disparities (never mind climate change) as the major factor in population growth issues. But that’s starting to change, and fast.
These disparities are starting to force policy makers and societies to rethink their beliefs about over-population, climate fairness, and international debt (see my earlier article: Climate Fairness / Climate Debt - Eco-Justice for Poorer Nations)
In the early 1980’s, famed futurist Alvin Toffler, in his book The Third Wave made the case that we in the West were becoming “post technological” (beyond even “post industrial”). This is the “third wave” the title refers to; First wave (according to Toffler) is the agrarian based economy; Second wave is the industrial economy (with its marked exploitation of resources); and Third wave is the “information” economy and other high-tech industries. These latter industries also hold out the promise of being more sustainable (if managed thusly) and eco-friendly. Toffler then suggests that Third Wave societies like us have a duty to help first wave societies transition through the Second Wave of industrial development, avoiding many of the mistakes and pitfalls (and pollution) we made or encountered so as to achieve their own third wave (or transitional forms thereof) economies. Such a forward looking concept–radical for its time–would seem to be a concept whose time has surely come.
This would close the disparity in consumption rates, elevate living standards, mitigate much industrialized pollution that will further contribute to climate change, and perhaps even eliminate, in time, the growing threat from terrorism.
chart at top: Public Domain
