Prioritization is surely a good thing, but I am coming at this from
another angle.
There will soon enough be 10G people, of whom perhaps 0.4G will be American.
If we take sustainability to mean no drawdown of remaining species
population in the wild, no significant extraction of fossil fuels or
groundwater, no net large scale changes in composition of atmosphere
and ocean, can the average American standard of living as of today
become the global average?
My intuition says no, it has too much impact, but I am trying to find
somebody who has done the calculation in earnest, or, failing that,
sources for the right numbers.
It's not even clear that the peak population can be sustained at all,
but presuming that it can how far does average American consumption
need to decline over the next century, and in what aspects?
It will help you to prioritize if you know what your goal is. It's not
hard to suspect that the goal is a distant and harsh one, but who
knows?
If not all countries stabilize at the same standard of living, what is
the moral justification for this?
Note that I am not opposed to lots of good things with small impact! I
think life can continue to be fun, perhaps more so. It will just have
a lot fewer cheeseburger drive-ins, which admittedly are a bit fun,
but not as fun as all that.
I think the calculation involves food, water, energy and land. I note
that these are aspects of wealth for which it's difficult or
impossible to find technological substitutes.
mt
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