Date published: 2011/05/14
The BBC says:
The world is set to consume three times more natural resources than current rates by the middle of the century, according to a United Nations report.
It predicts that humanity will annually use about 140 billion tonnes of fossil fuels, minerals and ores by 2050.
The authors call for resource consumption to be "decoupled" from economic growth, and producers to do "more with less".
Growth in population and prosperity are the main drivers, they observe.
The report is the latest in a series by the UN Environment Programme's (Unep) International Resource Panel.
"Decoupling makes sense on all the economic, social and environmental dials, " said Unep executive director Achim Steiner.
"People believe environmental 'bads' are the price we must pay for economic 'goods'.
"However, we cannot and need not continue to act as if this trade-off is inevitable."
Co-lead author Mark Swilling from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, explained what would drive the surge in demand for resources.
"The reality is that there is another billion middle-class consumers on the way as a result of rapid industrialisation in developing countries," he told BBC News.
"If the resources required to generate these goods and services are used as efficiently as they currently are, then you are looking at that massive growth to 140 billion tonnes."
...
In the report's three scenarios, the most optimistic one would see annual per capita consumption return to 2000 levels, with 50bn tonnes being consumed each year.But the authors acknowledge that the measures required to deliver that scenario would be so restrictive and unappealing to politicians that it is almost a non-starter.
They also admit that even this scenario is too little for some scientists, who feel it would not cut consumption and associated emissions to sustainable levels.
...
Professor Swilling said that rapid industrialisation offered another opportunity to improve resource efficiency - urbanisation."We are in the middle of what we refer to in the report as the 'second urbanisation wave', which is resulting in three billion people living in cities," he observed.
"The largest growth in urbanisation will be in developing countries; so a lot, again, is going to depend upon how we understand cities in developing nations and how we plan them, and how we accommodate large numbers of people.
"The advantage of cities is that they deliver a quality of life with fewer resources than the same quality of life outside of cities; cities are potentially key for the more efficient use of resources, and they are also melting pots for innovation."
This report is so misguided on so many levels it is ridiculous. First of all, it is always a bad sign when people who consume far more resources than the average human being write a report complaining that human beings are consuming far too many resources. Secondly, and most seriously, to pretend that resource consumption can be "decoupled" from economic growth is like pretending that gravity can be pointed upwards instead of downwards. Thirdly, cities do not "deliver a quality of life with fewer resources than the same quality of life outside of cities". In fact the entire reason that people migrate to cities is because the per capita income (and so resource consumption) is far higher than in rural areas. It is one of the delusions of the academic middle class that city residents are somehow environmental saints whereas rural and (especially) suburban residents are somehow environmental sinners.
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