Humanity Hitting the Resource Ceiling

Humanity Hitting the Resource Ceiling
By Stephen Leahy


UXBRIDGE, Canada, May 12, 2011 (IPS) - Better living through using far fewer material resources is the only possible future, experts agree. Humanity is pressing up against the limits of a finite planet to provide resources like water, oil, metals and food, according to a new report released Thursday.

Higher resource consumption levels will be prohibitively costly or simply impossible, warns the report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

"Global resource consumption is exploding. It's not a trend that is in any way sustainable," said Ernst von Weizsäcker, co-chair of UNEP's International Resource Panel.

"We must realise that prosperity and well-being do not depend on consuming ever-greater quantities of resources," said von Weizsäcker. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55614

resources and have people dying from famine, etc. My pessimistic guess is that we will keep fighting for resources and people will keep dying like they are now, only maybe even more people dying :( I hope I am wrong but I worry a lot.

K&R

Coasting on empty going over the cliff with not even a tap on the brakes?

The Haves will do all they can to the keep their life styles intact and the Have-Nots will die maintaining it.
Like we have now between the United States and the Middle East.

I can't say what I want on this forum. Not if I want to continue posting.


Let me just say one thing one more time. If 300 million in the US, and a few more in Europe and Canada (forget Canada, it's the size of California's population) can take the planet down, then a billion in India, and another billion in China have the potential are going to trash this planet so fast your head will spin. They are like the US in the 60's when you could find a freeway that was empty, and wonder why it was built. And then drive that same freeway in 1990, and realize someone knew what was coming. India and China haven't even warmed up yet.

India and China haven't even warmed up yet.

Even if it isn't, US style consumption can't become widespread because commodity shortages (either real or engineered by finance parasites) will kick in. Take the example of oil. The US consumed more oil than China, India, Brazil and Russia combined in 2009. There just isn't enough oil for everyone to consume like we do, not at reasonable prices anyway. Nor is it even necessary. Consider that the European lifestyle is only half as energy intense as the US and they have long cold winters to worry about, unlike Brazil or India.

That said, I've noticed that Greens obsess about the meager amounts consumed by people living on $2 a day half a world away, while ignoring their own privileged lifestyles. Not to mention a long history of their turning a blind eye to environmental racism against Black and Native American communities in the US. Environmentalism of that kind - divorced from any sense of economic or social justice - is a recipe for trouble. In fact, international "Green" coercion is likely to spark local and global conflicts in the coming decades. I've come to the conclusion that Greens are either naive about these matters or (what's more likely) they've calculated that someone else will do most of the dying in the event of a conflict. It is quite abhorrent, frankly.

Mind, I don't deny that environmental issues are a huge, even critical problem of this century. However they cannot be considered in a void and, what's more, the current global framework of competing capitalist states is utterly incapable of tackling them. Consider the carbon credit scam, for instance. Does it look like the work of people who care about the environment or greedy crooks looking to make a quick buck?

ed: spelling

If one takes two billion and divides it by 300 million, one gets 6.66. OMG it's the beast!!!

Even if they're 1/7th as frugal as we've been, it will still be just like America and Europe doing the same thing as usual. With the addition of Europe and America, and the rest of the world.

And they will be at least half as much in the way of consumption. This lifestyle is awesome. And once one gets a taste, they are hooked. Except for what you posted regarding resources. Just because a car runs on renewable energy, it still takes an infrastructure. The statistic I've seen is that 15% of the energy ever used by a car is what it takes to build that car. That's also not fair because internal combustion engines take a shitload of energy to build, versus electric motors.

The big problem I see is the carbon hump we need to get over in order to even begin to be producing renewable energy. Billions of photovoltaics. Batteries. Electric cars. Hot water is an issue.

I think it really is doom and gloom. But after years of agonizing over it, I recently saw a post on DU that was brilliant. It was more along the lines of just acknowledging, and not trying to force everyone to see and change. After all, I really don't know what tomorrow will bring. It's hard to watch if you have brains like we do.


Edited for flawed logic. It's not divided by 300 million. But it would include everyone living a modern lifestyle. So that number of 6 would be much smaller. But the point is still valid. Unless they stay poor, they are living some fair fraction of the lifestyle we live. We shall see.

where we force abortions and sterilizations.

With fewer people, there would be enough to go around.

Did I say would? I meant will.

If we don't control births, nature/reality will surely up the death count.

The wastefulness and hideously inegalitarian distribution of goods which are hallmarks of capitalism leave us with no real idea of what it would take to meet the needs of humanity. I suspect that under a rational economic system that the picture would be very different.