Radio silence broken, but only because this article from AFP via SEED is the kind of thing that really, really irritates me. The statement that the United States uses more than a quarter of the natural resources while only having 5% of the population sure does sound ominous when provided without any context, but even a slightly more serious look at things reveals that we’re really not so bad.
According to the World Bank, the US produced about 28% of total global output in 2005. Which, to me anyway, suggests that we’re a tad more efficient than the rest of the world. Everyone else combined produces 72% of the output with 75% of the resources, we produce 28% of the output with 25% of the resources: we’re more efficient polluters.
This is the kind of thing that typically gets missed in environmental reporting. While it would be wonderful if we could acheive the same level of material success and not pollute at all, that simply isn’t possible. Given that we want the standard of living to continue to increase rather than stagnate or decline, it’s a safe bet that we’ll continue to pollute at some level for the forseeable future. Given that, it seems the best course of action would be for other nations to emulate the dynamism of the United States and learn to produce more with what they do consume. After all, we’re the best at it.
