Whats you consumption factor?

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Said1

Hubba Hubba
Apr 18, 2005
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Das Kapital
Wow, 32 Kenyans?

TO mathematicians, 32 is an interesting number: it’s 2 raised to the fifth power, 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2. To economists, 32 is even more special, because it measures the difference in lifestyles between the first world and the developing world. The average rates at which people consume resources like oil and metals, and produce wastes like plastics and greenhouse gases, are about 32 times higher in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia than they are in the developing world. That factor of 32 has big consequences.
To understand them, consider our concern with world population. Today, there are more than 6.5 billion people, and that number may grow to around 9 billion within this half-century. Several decades ago, many people considered rising population to be the main challenge facing humanity. Now we realize that it matters only insofar as people consume and produce.
If most of the world’s 6.5 billion people were in cold storage and not metabolizing or consuming, they would create no resource problem. What really matters is total world consumption, the sum of all local consumptions, which is the product of local population times the local per capita consumption rate.
The estimated one billion people who live in developed countries have a relative per capita consumption rate of 32. Most of the world’s other 5.5 billion people constitute the developing world, with relative per capita consumption rates below 32, mostly down toward 1.
The population especially of the developing world is growing, and some people remain fixated on this. They note that populations of countries like Kenya are growing rapidly, and they say that’s a big problem. Yes, it is a problem for Kenya’s more than 30 million people, but it’s not a burden on the whole world, because Kenyans consume so little. (Their relative per capita rate is 1.) A real problem for the world is that each of us 300 million Americans consumes as much as 32 Kenyans. With 10 times the population, the United States consumes 320 times more resources than Kenya does.
People in the third world are aware of this difference in per capita consumption, although most of them couldn’t specify that it’s by a factor of 32. When they believe their chances of catching up to be hopeless, they sometimes get frustrated and angry, and some become terrorists, or tolerate or support terrorists. Since Sept. 11, 2001, it has become clear that the oceans that once protected the United States no longer do so. There will be more terrorist attacks against us and Europe, and perhaps against Japan and Australia, as long as that factorial difference of 32 in consumption rates persists.

People who consume little want to enjoy the high-consumption lifestyle. Governments of developing countries make an increase in living standards a primary goal of national policy. And tens of millions of people in the developing world seek the first-world lifestyle on their own, by emigrating, especially to the United States and Western Europe, Japan and Australia. Each such transfer of a person to a high-consumption country raises world consumption rates, even though most immigrants don’t succeed immediately in multiplying their consumption by 32.
Among the developing countries that are seeking to increase per capita consumption rates at home, China stands out. It has the world’s fastest growing economy, and there are 1.3 billion Chinese, four times the United States population. The world is already running out of resources, and it will do so even sooner if China achieves American-level consumption rates. Already, China is competing with us for oil and metals on world markets.
Per capita consumption rates in China are still about 11 times below ours, but let’s suppose they rise to our level. Let’s also make things easy by imagining that nothing else happens to increase world consumption — that is, no other country increases its consumption, all national populations (including China’s) remain unchanged and immigration ceases. China’s catching up alone would roughly double world consumption rates. Oil consumption would increase by 106 percent, for instance, and world metal consumption by 94 percent.
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Continued Here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02diamond.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
 
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Said1

Hubba Hubba
Apr 18, 2005
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Das Kapital
Where will the people consume things?


Personally, I like Diamond and "Guns and Germs', I don't think he's another nobel quack.
 
Francis2004

Francis2004

Subjective Poster
Nov 18, 2008
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JLM said:
I don't know where all these "scholars" come from that dream up all this crap, but if you want to make sure we don't "screw ourselves out of a place at the table"- then it's plain and simple - quit subdividing arrable land to build houses on.
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JLM, some of this must be taken with a smile. The reality is the "Scholars" are always pointing out many of the obvious, and sometimes not so obvious, facts of life.. Just reflect on it and if you cannot affect its impact then don't worry.. Life is way to short for everything we are information overloaded with..
 
L Gilbert

L Gilbert

Winterized
Nov 30, 2006
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the-brights.net
I like the last part ...... "The world has serious consumption problems, but we can solve them if we choose to do so."
Anyone remember Eeyore from the Winnie the Pooh books? I think I personify him when I think of humanities future.
 
C

Cliffy

Standing Member
Nov 19, 2008
44,850
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L Gilbert said:
I like the last part ...... "The world has serious consumption problems, but we can solve them if we choose to do so."
Anyone remember Eeyore from the Winnie the Pooh books? I think I personify him when I think of humanities future.
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I envision 7 billion Pac Men devouring the planet. When there is nothing left, they start devouring each other.
 
S

Said1

Hubba Hubba
Apr 18, 2005
5,336
66
48
51
Das Kapital
L Gilbert said:
I like the last part ...... "The world has serious consumption problems, but we can solve them if we choose to do so."
Anyone remember Eeyore from the Winnie the Pooh books? I think I personify him when I think of humanities future.
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The old grey donkey, Eeyore stood by himself in a thistly corner of the Forest, his front feet well apart, his head on one side, and thought about things. Sometimes he thought sadly to himself, "Why?" and sometimes he thought, "Wherefore?" and sometimes he thought, "Inasmuch as which?" and sometimes he didn't quite know what he was thinking about.
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So you're chronically depressed and misplace your tail for attention? :lol:
 
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U

Unforgiven

Force majeure
May 28, 2007
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You do understand that this sun is going to explode right?
The future of this planet is finite and armed with this knowledge,
screw you guys, I'm getting all I can! 8O
 
darkbeaver

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
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RR1 Distopia 666 Discordia
Said1 said:
Where will the people consume things?


Personally, I like Diamond and "Guns and Germs', I don't think he's another nobel quack.
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The population problem will be solved by the most cost effective measures and that is decidedly not raising the underdeveloped nations consumption. I liked Collapse.
 
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Said1

Hubba Hubba
Apr 18, 2005
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Das Kapital
darkbeaver said:
He highlighted the collapse of four or five civilizations I haven't read or can't remember reading Guns and Germs.
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Sounds similar, although it's more or less a counter argument to David Landes book "wealth and poverty of nations" where he basically argues that the success or failure of nations (society etc) is due to a series of bad decisions. Diamond asserts that it isn't bad decisions but geography and competition for resources.
 
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