Befolkning og ressursbruk

Jeg har lenge vært opptatt av størrelsen på jordens befolkning og ressursbruk. Etter å ha lest boka “The world in 2050” av Laurence C. Smith har jeg modifisert det synet noe. Selv om befolkningens størrelse fremdeles er viktig, så er hvor mye vi forbruker enda viktigere. Det viser dette sitatet fra boka.

… resource consumption, much like our global population … the two certainly feed off one another, rising resource demand has less to do with population growth per se tahn with modernization. My UCLA colleague Jared Diamond illustrates this by considering an individual´s “consumption factor.” For teh average person living in North America, Western Europe, Japan, or Australia, his or her consumption factor is 32.
If your consumption factor, like mine, is 32, that means you and I each consume thirty-two times more resources and produce thirty-two times more waste than the average citizen of Kenya, for example, with a consumption factor of 1. Put another way, in under two years we plow through more stuff than the average Kenyan does in his entire life. Of the 6.8+ billion of us alive on Earth now, only about about a billion – 15% – enjoy this lavish lifestyle. The vast majority of the human race lives in developing coutries with a consumption factors much lower than 32, mostly down toward 1.
Places with a consumption factor of 1 are among the most impoverished, dagerous, and depressing on Earth. Regardless of what country we live in, we all want to see these conditions improve – for security as well as humanitarian reasons. Many charitable people and organizations are working toward this goal, from central governments and NGOs to the UN to local churches and individual donors. Most developing countries, too, are striving mightily to industrialize and improve their lot. Organizations large and small, from the World Bank and IMF, to the Grameen Bank and other microlenders, are providing loans to help. Who among us does not want to see such efforts succeed? Who does not want the world´s lingering poverty, hunger, and disease brought to an end?
But therein lies a dilemma. What if you could play God and do the noble, ethically fair thing by converting the entire developing world´s level of material consumption to that now carried out by North Americans, Western Europeans, Japanese, and Australians today. By merely snapping your fingers you could eliminate this misery. Would you?
I sure hope not. The world you just created would be frightening. Global consumption would rise elevenfold. It would be as if the world´s population suddenly went from under 7 billion today to 72 billion. Where would all that meat, fish, water, energy, plastic, metal, and wood come from?
Now let us suppose that this transformation were to happen not instantly but gratually, over the next forty years. Demographers estimate that total world population might level off at around 9.2 billion by 2050. Therefore, if the end gal is for everyone on Earth to live as Americans, Western Europeans, Japanese, and Australians do today, then the natural world must step up to provide enough stuff to support the equivalent of 105 billion people today.
Veiwed in this light, lifestyle is an even more potent multiplier of human pressure on the world resource base than is total population itself. Global modernization and prosperity – an eminently laudable and desirable goal – ar thus raising demands upon the natur world now more than ever.

Det som ergrer meg mest med denne boka er at den bare prøver å “gønne på” frem til 2050, og så får det gå som det går etter det. Løsningen på ovenstående problemstilling er jo selvsagt REDUKSJON i den rike delen av verden, men det holder han seg også unna. Kona og jeg dannet Reduksjonspartiet for noen år siden – det tok aldri helt av. Selv om slagordet var fantastisk: “Mindre av alt til nesten alle.”

Oppdatering 8. juni 2015: I boka “Naturen er hellig” av Herbener (2015) står det også noen tall om dette (s. 175):

For eksempel forbruger de 80 millioner indbyggere i Tyskland lige så meget som en mrd fattige afrikanere. Chicagos 2,7 mill. indbyggere forbruger mere end 100 millioner mennesker i Bangladesh. I USA og Europa konsumerer babyer givetvis 30 gange så meget som babyer i ulande. Førstnævnte forurener også 30 gange så meget som sidstnævnte. Holland har i moderne tid haft et forbrug, der har fordret et landområde, der er 14 gange så stort som Holland selv.
I øvrigt udleder én amerikansk kvinde gennomsnitligt lige meget CO2 som 136 kvinder fra Bangladesh tilsammen.

Om Lars

Jeg bor i Kristiansand, og lever av havpadling. Mer info om meg og firmaet på www.digital-info.no
Dette innlegget ble publisert i Bøker, Samfunn. Bokmerk permalenken.

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