Economics and China

[kandrathe]

How narrow-minded of you; I am disappointed: ...

It is naive of you to believe the volume of population has no bearing on shortage of resources and quite frankly, I'm a bit aghast you even suggest otherwise. Your and FIT's ideal strategy to cut consumption in all developed nations is not only ludicrous, but asinine all level of business infrastructure.

Well, first it is not ideal, nor is it mine. Realistically, our world has certain finite useful resources, like metals. I'm not advocating "cutting" consumption, but rather voluntarily conserving consumption. For example, is there any reason why plumbing must be done with copper pipes, rather than bio-plastic PVC?

Second, I did say the "volume of population" has a bearing on shortages, but the shortages we are seeing are due to improving the living standards in countries with already large populations. If shortages are related to overpopulations, then those overpopulations occurred decades ago, where the bulk of those populations existed at subsistence levels. Now they are aspiring for the middle classes, with consumption commensurate with the improvement in living standards, like owning an automobile, and having hot/cold running water and a toilet in the house.

To illustrate the point, I will use data from the link you supplied; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption
Between 1990, and 2008 China's population increased by 17% (1.141 Billion to 1.333 Billion), while their energy consumption (per capita) increased by 111% (8839 kWh/capita to 18,608 kWh/capita). Looking at total energy use paints a bleaker picture, China went from 10.1 (1000 TWh) to 24.8 (1000 TWh), which is a 146% increase. But, imagine if all China's population consumed at the US rate of 87,216 kWh/capita (or 26.6 (1000 TWh). Please also note that over this same period the population of the US rose 22%, which is 5% larger than China.

Third, China, and to a lesser degree India are addressing their population growth issues (not well enough, but hey they are worried about choking to death on their own smog). The largest percentage population growth currently is in the middle east and Africa.



"World population (UN)" by Conscious
Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons

What would a real win-win scenario look like? No FIT, this is no "Interstellar" bullshit... NASA plans on sending a team to Mars by 2025, it's already in the works. If it turns out to be highly habitable, then guess what, we can supplant part of our population by mining that planet for resources and everyone wins... people, corporations, the planet. True insight towards the future starts with what we can do, and this is within our grasp as a species.

Yet, putting our eggs of sustainability into a non-existent basket is neither ludicrous, nor asinine? If, and when, we developed additional habitable planets, then I would begin to count on them. However, we still must deal with what we have now, right in front of us.

Cutting emissions and resources down to safe levels is impossible even if all 1st world countries back because the rest of the world is growing and expanding so rapidly, it simply cannot sustain itself.

I think "safe" is perhaps not the right word. I can "safely" live as a cave man, but I would prefer not to do so. I like having cheap electricity, delicious fresh food, a warm house, and readily accessible high speed transportation. The difficult proposition is to look at commonly expected amenities of our modern society and figure out how it would be capable to deliver the same level of service to every person on the planet.

How much farm-able land do you imagine there is in the world versus the rate of population growth? How much potable water? How much mineral resources? This isn't rocket science here - do the math. Cutting back on consumption will help stymie the effects of this situation, however not forever.

I think it is the wrong questions. I recently drove across South Dakota, so my view of resources per capita is a bit skewed right now. I think the question we might want to ask is whether we are using the land/water resources we have developed efficiently. To which I would say, no. As for fresh water resources, much of our issues in North America have to do with where people choose to live. Is it a surprise that Californians are having trouble with water resources? No, it is an arid environment which cannot naturally sustain its population. They must rely on importing much of their resource needs from places where those resources are more abundant. This is also true for other places in the world, like Japan, or Dubai. But, there are huge opportunities to resolve these issues with solar power desalinization facilities. Other places, like here in Minnesota, have issues with ground water contamination. There is plenty of fresh water, but unless we control pollution, none of it will be fit to drink.

It's vital we as a species look forward NOW, because I'm fairly certain teraforming Mars cannot be done overnight; it may take over 100-years to plant enough oxygen producing species of fauna to make the air breathable and by that time, in 2115, how many people will be on this planet?

Again, if we agree to go by the UN medium projection, it would be around 10 billion. I would re-iterate that our shortage issue will not be due to huge increases in population, but rather the increasing desire for people to improve their living conditions.

I think we can agree that we want there to be zero poverty in the world, and it is an attainable goal. But, in order to peacefully achieve it we (the wealthy nations) must be willing to conserve, and reduce our consumption but also share our abundance with those who have less. I'm not really with FIT on this as we see the same goals, but achieved by different means.