Journalist Fred Pearce has a column arguing that population growth is a red herring in climate change debate - the bigger issue is consumption.
“The the world’s richest half-billion people — that’s about 7 percent of the global population — are responsible for 50 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile the poorest 50 percent are responsible for just 7 percent of emissions,” he notes.
Or consider how much stuff we need to make the stuff we consume.
For a wider perspective of humanity’s effects on the planet’s life support systems, the best available measure is the “ecological footprint,” which estimates the area of land required to provide each of us with food, clothing, and other resources, as well as to soak up our pollution. This analysis has its methodological problems, but its comparisons between nations are firm enough to be useful.
They show that sustaining the lifestyle of the average American takes 9.5 hectares, while Australians and Canadians require 7.8 and 7.1 hectares respectively; Britons, 5.3 hectares; Germans, 4.2; and the Japanese, 4.9. The world average is 2.7 hectares. China is still below that figure at 2.1, while India and most of Africa (where the majority of future world population growth will take place) are at or below 1.0.
These sort of calculations can leave you scratching your head. Is the problem the amount we consume or the way the stuff we consume is made? The governor of Oregon, for one, thinks we consume too much — and this from a state that has the second highest unemployment rate in the nation.