US
Population Hits 300 Million,
But Is It Sustainable?
By Andrew Buncombe
12 October 2006
The
Independent
The
population of the United States will pass 300 million today, or tomorrow.
No one knows exactly where, no one know precisely when. It is a milestone
for sure but is this a cause for celebration or anxiety?
Some American commentators
are already saying the landmark is a chance to note the US is perhaps
the only country in the developed world where the economy is being bolstered
by a population that is growing at a discernable rate. But many experts
say passing the 300 million milestone should be a wake-up call that
demands a reappraisal of the extraordinary, unparalleled rate of consumption
by the world's largest economy and its third largest by population.
As an economic model for
the rest of the world to follow - in particular the rapidly developing
economies of China and India - it is unsustainable, they say.
On a global scale the average
US citizen uses far more than his or her fair share of the planet's
resources - consuming more than four times the worldwide average of
energy, almost three times as much water and producing more than twice
the average amount of rubbish and five times the amount of carbon dioxide,
a major contributor to global warming. The US - with five per cent of
the world's population - uses 23 per cent of its energy, 15 per cent
of its meat and 28 per cent of its paper. Additional population will
mean more people seeking a share of those often-limited resources.
It may be that America's
citizen number 300,000,000 will be an undocumented migrant, born to
undocumented parents somewhere in the South or the West, where population
growth is the fastest. Almost one-third of America's annual population
growth of between 0.9 per cent and 1 per cent is the result of immigration
- much of it illegal.
"America is the only
industrialised nation in the world experiencing significant population
growth," Victoria Markham, the director of the Centre for Environment
and Population (CEP), says in a new report. "The nation's relatively
high rates of population growth, natural resource consumption and pollution
combine to create the largest environmental impact, felt both within
the nation and around the world." She adds: " The US has become
a 'super-size' nation, with lifestyles reflected in super-sized appetites
for food, houses, land and resource consumption. 'More of more' seems
to characterise modern-day America - more people than any generation
before us experienced, more natural resources being utilised to support
everyday life and more major impacts on the natural systems that support
life on earth."
Some commentators believe
this growth has a modest impact on the nation's resources and can bring
many benefits. Greg Easterbrook, a fellow at the Brookings Institution,
a Washington-based, independent research and policy institute, recently
wrote: "What should not worry us about continuing US population
growth ... is the question of whether we can handle it - we can,"
he said.
Lester Brown, the director
of the Earth Policy Institute, an environmental group also based in
Washington, said: "In times past, reaching such a demographic milestone
might have been a cause for celebration - in 2006 it is not. Population
growth is the ever-expanding denominator that gives each person a shrinking
share of the resource pie. It contributes to water shortages, cropland
conversion to non-farm uses, traffic congestion, more garbage, overfishing,
crowding in national parks, a growing dependence on imported oil and
other conditions that diminish the quality of our daily lives."
Mr Brown said there was also
a global perspective to America's rapacious model of consumption. In
addition to foreign policy decisions at least influenced by a desire
to secure diminishing resources, he said the US was setting an example
to the developing world that was unsustainable. "We used to think
of the developing countries as places that did not consume very much
... But it is starting to change and they are beginning to behave like
us and heading for income levels like us," he said.
If China's economy continued
to grow at 8 per cent a year, Mr Brown said, income levels in that country
would equal the 2004 US level by 2031, by which time China's population
would stand at 1.45 billion.
If current consumption rates
were multiplied to take into account its population growth, China's
paper consumption would be double the current total world production
of paper and its vehicle fleet would be 1.1 billion; the world's current
total fleet is 800 million.
"What China is teaching
us is that the Western economic model is not going to work for China
and if it will not work for China it will not work for India and in
the long-term ... it will not work for us as well," he said.
It was in 1915 that the US
population reached 100 million. Fifty-two years later, in 1967, it reached
200 million. It has taken just 39 more years for the milestone of 300
million to be achieved.
1915: US population reaches
100 million
The population of America
hit the 100-million mark in 1915, two years before President Woodrow
Wilson would enter the First World War. Americans were stunned by the
sinking of the British liner, 'Lusitania', enthralled by Charlie Chaplin
and arguing about immigration. "There is here a great melting pot
in which we must compound a precious metal," said Wilson, as a
million European immigrants poured into the US each year.
The 'great white hope' Jess
Willard beat black boxing champion Jack Johnson in a dubious bout in
Havana; Marines were dispatched to Haiti after a mob killed its president
and the Ku Klux Klan was reestablished as a 'benevolent' organisation.
1967: US passes 200 million
By 1967, when the US population
hit 200m, the US was up to its neck in the Vietnam War, Muhammad Ali
was stripped of his world heavyweight title for refusing the draft,
dozens were killed in race riots in Detroit, and San Francisco was beguiled
by the Summer of Love.
Eugene McCarthy said he would
run for president, the 25th Amendment to the Constitution was passed
allowing for a transfer of power to the vice-president if the president
was incapacitated and three Apollo astronauts burned to death during
a simulation at Cape Canaveral. The millionth telephone was installed
in the US. Hit films included The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night
and Bonnie and Clyde.
Supersize nation: how America
is eating the world
300m Expected population
of the United States by the end of this week
75 Life expectancy for men
in the US. Women are expected to live until 80
63 Life expectancy for men
in the developing world. Women are expected to live until 67
395m Projected population
of the US by 2050
1,682m3 US annual water consumption
per capita
633m3 The world's annual
water consumption per capita
545m3 The developing world's
annual water withdrawals per capita
5lbs Amount of waste each
US resident produces per day. That compares with about 3lbs per person
per day in Europe, and about 0.9-1.3lbs per person a day in the developing
world
$39,710 US Gross National
Income per head, 2004
$8,540 World's GNI per head
$4,450 Developing world's
GNI per head
19.8 US carbon dioxide emissions
per capita, in metric tonnes
3.9 World's carbon dioxide
emissions per head, in tonnes
1.8 Developing world's carbon
dioxide emissions per head, in tonnes
58bn Number of burgers consumed
by Americans every year
54m Number of Americans who
are obese
300,000 Deaths per year related
to obesity
678lbs US annual paper consumption
per head
115lbs The corresponding
figure for the world
44lbs The figure for the
developing world
204m number of vehicles on
US roads
37% Percentage of the total
cars in the world on America's roads
1 in 7 Barrels of world oil
supply used by US drivers
24m Number of Americans who
drive SUVs
7,921 US energy consumption
per capita, 2001, expressed in kilograms of oil
1,631 World's energy consumption
per capita, in kilograms of oil
828 Corresponding figure
for the developing world
© 2006 Independent News
and Media Limited
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