fatally successful

One key problem in the fight against global warming is that the two most populous nations on earth, China and India, are experiencing rapid growth. That means their populations, which together are more than double those of the developed world, are furiously increasing their spending and consumption. And with it their carbon output. Imagine over two billion people who up until now were largely poor and using few resources, suddenly becoming American-style consumers. Even if only a small percentage of them manage to rise up to our level it will be a disaster of global proportions.

"Improving" one's lifestyle means increasing the number of households as large families split up into smaller units. That translates into more housing and more space per individual. It is estimated that one individual living a Western life-style turns one acre of land into non-productive housing, roadways, parking lots, airports, shopping malls, etc. Even with no population growth China and India could put enormous stress on their land (read agriculture) resources if a substantial number of their people started living in smaller, Western-style households. And for China the impact affects other nations as well since arable land is at a premium here.

And it does not stop there. With the move comes buying and driving one or more cars, instead of walking and bicycling. When people spread out, distances increase and more transportation is needed. And that does not just apply to the people themselves, but also to their food, their waste products, and the goods and services they buy and use. It means more trucks to deliver and retrieve goods.

It means more ships and more planes flying around. And at the same time it also means eating more calories, and shifting one's diet from one that is largely vegetarian to one that contains a lot of meat and fish. And fish means aquaculture as even the most optimistic projections show that wild fish stocks will be depleted by mid-century.

Shifting to meat or fish introduces another organism in the food chain. Food is produced and then consumed by those organisms. Some of it goes into building muscle or "meat," but the vast majority of it goes into keeping the animal alive. The result is that it takes anywhere between 8-12 calories of edible material to produce one calorie of meat or fish. It also takes a lot of water. Water that is used not just for drinking, but increasingly also to keep clean and wash out intensive production facilities.

Granted animal meat provides higher "quality" protein, but the increased value does not come close to offsetting the excess losses. Switching a person from a vegetarian diet to a Western-style diet effectively requires more than seven fold more land and water to feed that person. Imagine what would happen if we switched half of India, or China.

It is clear that the Western life-style that has served us well, is not sustainable in the long run. It isn't even sustainable if we try to expand it to the current world population. And that is why some have said to the developing world, do not follow our example. While that makes a good headline it is utterly unrealistic. What model are the Chinese and Indians supposed to develop ? And how would they do it ? Don't forget that we count on them to buy our goods and services. And that we can only get economies of scale if everyone standardizes. And that is exactly what is happening. Everyone is following our model, not just because it is there but because there is no alternative.

The sensible solution would be to break the web. To reduce global trade and put up barriers. And for us to change our life-style to one that is more sustainable in the long run. Neither one of these is likely to happen. There is just too much immediate benefit for those who continue on the current path. And it is too easy to delude ourselves and believe that a magical solution will appear before we hit the wall.

The monuments of the past illustrate one thing clearly. Magical solutions do not appear. Civilizations do disappear. While we may marvel at the remnants of the Roman Empire, or the pyramids of Egypt, or any other wonder of the world, it would be good to remember that these are first and foremost testimony of failure. They are the bones of the dinosaur. And we are about to add ours to the collection.