Reassessing the Earth's Population Carrying Capacity
by Lester R. Brown and Hal Kane
To see the original, Click here
Over the next 40 years, the world will face massive grain deficits in Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and China if populations grow as projected, according to the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental research institute.
The book, Full House: Reassessing the Earth's Population Carrying Capacity, by Lester R. Brown and Hal Kane, shows that the projected import deficits will dwarf exportable supplies, setting up fierce competition among importing countries and driving up world grain prices.
The authors present data showing that the world is moving into a new era. They observe that "From mid-century until recently, projected increases in the world fish catch and grain output were simple extrapolations of past trends. The past was a reliable guide to the future. But in a world of limits, this is changing."
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The authors conclude that "food security will replace military security as the principal preoccupation of national governments in the years ahead. Despite tight budgets," they say, "the resources are available to reverse the deteriorating relationship between ourselves and the natural systems and resources on which we depend. Even though the Cold War is over, the world is still spending close to $700 billion for military purposes, much of it designed to deal with threats that have long since disappeared."
Seldom has the world faced an unfolding emergency whose dimensions are as clear as the growing imbalance between food and people. The new information on the earth's carrying capacity brings with it a responsibility to educate and to act that, until recently, did not exist. A massive global environmental education effort, one in which the communications media is heavily involved, may be the only way to bring about the needed transformation in the time available.
Full House: Reassessing the Earth's Population Carrying Capacity is the fourth book in the Worldwatch Environmental Alert Series.
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http://www.worldwatch.org/alerts/pr960828.html
CHINA'S CLAIMS ON EARTH'S RESOURCES OVERTAKING THOSE OF THE UNITED STATESChina's surging economy is placing growing pressure on the earth's natural systems and resources, says the Worldwatch Institute in "China's Challenge to the United States and to the Earth," an article that will appear in the September/October 1996 issue of World Watch magazine. In the consumption of grain, meat, fertilizer, steel, and coal, China has already passed the United States to lead the world. In its use of oil and emissions of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, it is fast catching up. Although the United States still leads the world in consumption of many resources, and is far ahead of China in per capita terms for most resources, China's economy has expanded by two thirds since 1990, and its use of resources is growing apace. Multiplying even modest consumption levels by a population of 1.2 billion people-- more than the United States, Europe, and Russia combined--could have a potentially decisive effect on the global environment. "If China attempts to replicate the consumer economy pioneered in the United States, it will become clear that the U.S. economic model is not environmentally sustainable," noted the article's authors Lester R. Brown and Christopher Flavin. "If the average Chinese consumed as much grain and oil per person as an American does, prices of both commodities could go off the top of the charts. And carbon dioxide emissions would soar, leading to unprecedented climate instability."
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Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 17:11:50 -0700 (MST)
From: Elaine Cubbins
ecubbins@ag.Arizona.EDU
To: frugal-ed@listproc.wsu.edu
Subject: If China does what the U.S. does
Message-ID: Pine.SOL.3.95.970708170750
.21195E-100000@ag.arizona.edu
Hi,
I promise, this is my last post today.
This article [below] by Worldwatch
examines what China would need if it
pursued the path the U.S. has pursued
in its consumption patterns. It is
not a sustainable way to live.
www.worldwatch.org/mag/1996/96schi.html
Elaine
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Lester Brown:- In 1994, he
coauthored a book on the food/population situation, entitled
Full House:
Reassessing the Earth's Population Carrying Capacity. And in 1995, he wrote
Who Will Feed China? Wake-Up Call for a Small Planet.
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