Planet Faces Nightmare Forecasts
By Abid Aslam
11 March, 2005
OneWorld USThe worldwide pursuit of prosperity and material luxury--long dubbed 'the American dream'--will lead to global nightmares unless China and other nations retool their economies to rein in consumption and generate growth without doing so much harm to the planet, a think tank here said Wednesday.
''The economic model that evolved in the West--the fossil fuel-based, auto-centered, throwaway economy--will not work for China simply because there are not enough resources,'' said Lester Brown, founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute (EPI).
The same is true of India, with its rapidly growing economy and a large population expected to surpass China's by 2030, said Brown.
''Perhaps most important, in an increasingly integrated global economy where all countries are competing for the same dwindling resources, [the current economic model] will not continue to work for the 1.2 billion who currently live in the affluent industrial societies either,'' he added.
Millions of people in the world's most populous nation already live like Americans, eating more meat, driving cars, traveling abroad, and otherwise spending their fast-rising incomes. These elite consumers remain a small fraction of China's population of 1.3 billion but they have helped drive up China's use of basic commodities used in food, energy, and industry. In overall terms, Chinese consumption of grain and meat, coal, and steel has overtaken that of the United States, with its 295 million people. Americans still consume more oil than Chinese.
''Now the question is, What if consumption per person of these resources in China one day reaches the current U.S. level,'' said Brown.
China's economy has grown at a rapid 9.5 percent per year since it began a broad-ranging overhaul in 1978. If it were now to grow at 8 percent per year, doubling every nine years, income per person in 2031 for China's projected population of 1.45 billion would rise from its current $5,300 to $38,000, or last year's U.S. per capita income.
''If the Chinese consume resources in 2031 as voraciously as Americans do now, grain consumption per person there would climb from 291 kilograms today to the 935 kilograms needed to sustain a U.S.-style diet rich in meat, milk, and eggs,'' said Brown.
In 2031, China would consume 1,352 million tons of grain, equal to two thirds of all the grain harvested in the world last year.
To reach the U.S. 2004 meat intake of 276 pounds per person, China's total meat consumption would rise from the current 64 million tons to 181 million tons in 2031, or roughly four fifths of current world meat production.
If China were to burn coal at the current U.S. level of two tons per person, the country would use 2.8 billion tons per year--more than current world production of 2.5 billion tons.
And if the Chinese use oil at the same rate as Americans now do, by 2031 China would need 99 million barrels of oil a day. The world currently produces 79 million barrels per day and may never produce much more than that, Brown said.
In the short run, surging Chinese demand has been a boost to countries as far away as Argentina, which has bounced back from its 2001 crisis with an annual economic growth rate of 8 percent. Much of this is credited to Chinese demand for soy, which drove up Argentine production by 20 percent per year at a time when the South American country was struggling to do any international business. Argentina now provides one third of China's soy.
Brown, however, worried that one day Brazil's last rainforests will be felled to grow more grain and that other long-term consequences for China and others will include air unfit to breathe, food insecurity because of badly strained agriculture, and coastal flooding caused by changes in water tables and global warming.
Cars also threaten agriculture. If car ownership in China were to reach the U.S. level of three cars for every four people, China would have 1.1 billion cars in 2031, compared to 795 million cars worldwide now. The paving of land for roads, highways, and parking lots would approach the area now used to grow rice in China. Competition between car owners and farmers for productive cropland would be intense, Brown said.
Nightmares need not come to life, according to the EPI, which said it was working with policymakers, academics, businesses, and students to promote an alternative approach to economic growth in China and around the world.
''China is teaching us that we need a new economic model, one that is based not on fossil fuels but that instead harnesses renewable sources of energy, including wind power, hydropower, geothermal energy, solar cells, solar thermal power plants, and biofuels,'' said Brown, referring to fuels derived from agricultural waste.
Plan B, as the EPI calls its alternative, would shake up a number of professions, replacing petroleum geologists with wind meteorologists in the search for energy and giving energy architects a central role in designing buildings.
The alternative plan also features transport systems designed to maximize mobility rather than car use. Materials of all kinds would be reused and recycled before additional basic resources were tapped and industrial processes would be overhauled with the aim of making products without generating pollution or waste.
Many of the plan's ideas and proposals reflect a growing view among not only environmentalists but also some economists that things must change and that the needed expertise and technology already exist. While the ideas enjoy some support among policymakers and corporate executives, they have yet to take root.
''Plan A, business as usual, is no longer a viable option. We need to turn quickly to Plan B before the geopolitics of oil, grain, and raw material scarcity lead to economic instability, political conflict, and disruption of the social order on which economic progress depends,'' Brown concluded.
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