This site may have the answer to your questions http://www.footprintnetwork.org/index.php
It is interesting to compare the USA http://www.footprintnetwork.org/webgraph/graphpage.php?country=usa with the UK http://www.footprintnetwork.org/webgraph/graphpage.php?country=uk It seems that the USA is racing to catch up with the UK in ungreenness. Cheers, Alastair. On Aug 20, 2:35 pm, "Michael Tobis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 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 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
