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 New Consumers: A discussion with Dr. Norman Myers

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Background

The following information is intended to provide some context for the discussion.

There is much emergent evidence that consumption is at least as important to the environment as is population--and it will prove a much tougher problem to crack. After all, humans have had 10,000 years of believing that more of anything must necessarily be better--and they have had plenty of reason to believe that. Now we may well have to change our outlook within a couple of decades at most: to find ways to consume less, to consume more discriminatingly, to consume more efficiently, and thereby to enjoy richer lifestyles (Myers, 1997; Parikh et al., 1991).

Some highlights of present consumption patterns:

Since 1950 the global economy has nearly quintupled. The consumption of grain, beef and mutton/lamb has all but tripled, and the same for water, while paper consumption has risen six times. The combustion of fossil fuels has grown nearly four-fold, and carbon emissions likewise. Some of this, e.g. consumption of water and paper, could become sustainable through greater recycling, but much of the rest cannot be made sustainable with current and foreseeable technologies (Goodwin et al., 1997).

Since 1950 too, the richest one fifth of humankind has doubled its per- capita consumption of energy, meat, timber, steel and copper, and quadrupled its car ownership (Brown et al., 1998).

During 1998, Americans, with one twentieth of global population, contributed one quarter of the buildup of carbon dioxide in the global atmosphere. Their 270 million people accounted for more than the emissions of China's 1.2 billion people (cf. Dietz, 1995). But if the United States were to abandon its use of coal entirely, replacing it with non-polluting types of energy, this gesture would be largely offset by China and its heavy use of coal for its large population. If China goes ahead with its plan to build 20 coal-fired power plants per year, by the year 2020 it will emit more carbon than all the OECD nations put together (Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 1996).

The American dream may become a model for most developing nations and the former Soviet bloc (Merck Family Fund, 1995; United Nations Development Programme, 1998).

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with affluent communities consuming a large percentage of natural resources, provided these resources remain plentiful and can be recycled. At least 85 percent of iron and steel are consumed by the 20 percent richest of humankind--who do not thereby limit the consumption of poor communities. Indeed, the affluent communities' conversion of natural resources into human capital often enhances human welfare all round. It is of scant consequence that the average American consumes 115 times as much paper as the average Indian, provided the American recycles most of the paper (at present, only 41 percent). Much more significant is that the average American consumes 230 times as much gasoline as the average Indian, with all the grandscale pollution, including global warming, that causes. Two key questions arise: whether consumption uses resources or uses them up; and how much pollution and waste is caused by consumption (Myers, 1997).

Per-capita consumption worldwide has increased by 3 percent per year during the past quarter century. It is reasonable to suppose that people in the future will want it to increase by at least 2 percent per year (provided it can be sustainable). Per-capita consumption would then double in 35 years, quadruple in 70 years, and increase 8-fold by 2100. A 2-percent increase rate is no more than the United States has achieved during this century, albeit starting from a much lower base. Were global population to reach 11 billion people by 2100, total consumption would expand 15 times. Even if global population conformed to the low projection of 6.0 billion by 2100 (after a mid-century peak of 8.0 billion), consumption would still increase 8.4 times. Yet this lower level of consumption increase would surely prove unsustainable given the available stocks of non-renewable natural resources and given the Earth's limited capacity to absorb pollution among other forms of waste. This supposes of course that technology cannot supply breakthroughs sufficient to accommodate a consumption increase of that scope and speed. Technology's record over the past several decades suggests it produces as many problems as solutions (Hawken et al., 1999).

Bottom-line conclusion: current consumption patterns, especially on the part of the affluent with their rising numbers in developing nations and the former Soviet bloc, cannot persist on grounds of resource scarcities and environmental degradation alone. Nor should they persist on grounds of equity and social justice; but this factor, super-important as it is, will not be treated so prominently in the project as will the environmental constraints. So: it is a premise of this research project that consumption patterns will change, whether by design or by default. This would apply even if there were to be no new consumers on top of the 800 million super-consumers in long-affluent nations. Plainly it applies mega-much more in light of the 800 million new consumers already in place, and the prospect of still larger numbers of new consumers within the foreseeable future (Pew Charitable Trusts, 1994).

As a further measure of how far the future outlook for consumption will prove unsustainable if it follows present patterns and aspirations, consider the case of China. If per-capita consumption of beef, currently only 4 kgs. per year, were to match the U.S.'s 45 kgs., and if the additional beef came from feedlots, this would take almost 350 million tons of grain, equivalent to the entire U.S. grain harvest. If China were to seek extra animal protein through seafood at the per-capita level of Japan, it would need 100 million tons, more than today's entire ocean fish catch (which is unsustainable anyway). If China were ever to match the U.S. for per-capita cars and oil consumption, it would need 80 million barrels of oil per day, whereas current global output is 65 million barrels per day (Brown et al., 1999).

Consider also how far the present consumption of fossil fuels is unsustainable, and likely to become more so if the new consumers purchase large numbers of motor vehicles. We need to cut CO2 emissions from 8 gigatonnes per year to a semi-safe level of 2 gigatonnes. Shared among 6 billion people, 2 GTs works out to 1 kg. per day, or enough to drive a large car, e.g. a sports utility vehicle, 5 kms. The "allowance" is now exceeded by China 1.5 times, Japan 6 times, and the U.S. 14 times.

The above is not to overlook the severe fact that there are 1.3 billion people, or almost 1 in 5, who subsist off cash incomes of $1 or less per day. For certain, these people need to be enabled to consume more - much more, and immediately.

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References
Brown, L.R. et al. 1998. State of the World 1998. Norton, New York.

Brown, L.R. et al. 1998. Vital Signs 1998. Norton, New York.

Brown, L.R. et al. 1999. State of the World 1999. Norton, New York.

Dietz, T. 1995. Thinking About the Global Environmental Impacts of U.S. Consumption. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.

Ehrlich, P.R and A.H. Ehrlich. 1996. Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future. Island Press, Washington DC.

Goodwin, N.R., F. Ackerman and D. Kiron, eds. 1997. The Consumer Society. Earthscan, London, U.K.

Hawken, P., A.H. Lovins and H. Lovins. 1999. Natural Capitalism. Little, Brown, Boston.

Merck Family Fund. 1995. Yearning for Balance, Merck Family Fund, Takoma Park, Maryland.

Myers, N. 1997. "Consumption in Relation to Population, Environment and Development." The Environmentalist 17: 33-44.

Parikh, J.K., K.S. Parikh, S. Gokarn, J.P. Painuly, B. Saha and V. Shukla. 1992. Consumption Patterns: The Driving Force of Environmental Stress. Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Bombay, India.

Pew Foundation. 1994. Population, Consumption and the Environment: Will the Growing Population Destroy the Planet? Pew Global Stewardship Initiative, Pew Foundation, Philadelphia, Pa.

United Nations Development Programme. 1998. Human Development Report, 1998. Oxford University Press, New York.
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