Golden DUCK
5% of the world’s population, 25% of the world’s energy consumption and 75% of the world’s pollution generation – all these attributes belong to a single developed country, USA. Yes, these facts might be astounding you; it’s hard to accept the bitter truth. I am neither an environment activist nor a critic to blame the way USA handling with environment. Cornerstone of my blog is to find the right way of dealing with environment.
For what we all are struggling - just for a better society and a better living. Every individual struggles in the cut-throat competition just for the development of his own and his family. In the macroscopic view, every country tries for the upliftment of its economy and its living standards; sometimes even some organizations like UN, IMF, World Bank, G-20 etc assist for the growth of others. Discussing the parameters of the growth of an economy, a country with two digit growth percentage is undisputedly in the high way to the development. This is achieved by huge increment in the production of steel, extraction of minerals, manufacturing of automobiles and many more. Every sector is in turn linked with the huge consumption of natural resources which are mainly non-renewable. So where are we heading towards? - Early completion of the resources which were gifted by the mother earth. It’s a showcase of the Golden Duck story where we are restricted to think only of the meat of the duck rather than the lovely golden eggs it hatches.
If the undisputed world’s super power USA, what every nation aspires to become, has such an astonishing figures of pollution and energy consumption then how can any other country can’t maintain such figures? In my own typical way let us start from the root causes of all these. Firstly, a country with just 5% of the world’s population requires 25% of the world’s power shows how much more energy an average person is using in USA. All this is because of the developed state where most of the people have access to the machines, and huge numbers of technology driven industries are prevalent. Average per capita income of their citizens is much higher than the average per capita income of the world. Thus they have the purchasing power to buy more appliances and machines. Again this in turn creates the demand in the industry sector for the goods and demand in the power sector. Thus plethoras of industries are formed to satiate the demand and all they want is raw material which is mostly non-renewable. So a huge production requires a huge amount of the raw materials, and the gifts that we are giving back to the nature are the effluents to the water bodies, smoke to the atmosphere, and some non-biodegradable materials. Ironically, we proudly celebrate the industrial revolution and industrial growth as man’s achievement.
Apart from the holocaust to the nature, many industries claim to have reduced their wastes % per item produced. All these facts are apparently pleasing but in absolute terms overall waste generated by the company per year is increasing exponentially, because their production is growing at a much higher rate than the decreasing rate of the waste per item. Keeping all this apart, what are we doing to counteract the pollution done previously? – Making more agricultural areas into SEZs, encroaching the forest area by deforestation for mining leases, approaching to mineral rich mountains and disturbing the flora and fauna, giving money to the poor countries for the carbon credits etc. Instead of negating the previous pollution levels we are adding up the pollution levels by thinking that all the previous mistakes are absorbed by the nature. Nature has some rate to digest the polluted air by converting them to useful form. We have to find out that rate and limit our pollution levels to that, whereas nothing is done in the present scenario.
In case of resources there are very few renewable resources and rests of them are non-renewable like metals, oil etc. As we can’t replete the used resources better make a limit for the usage of resources per year and stick to that limit. My suggestion may be highly hypothetical since it is difficult to restrict the demand. If we don’t restrict ourselves, then the dearth of resources restricts us. All these are possible with strict government rules. Moreover, we can cut short resource consumption in industries like defense, automobiles, etc. When we are talking in terms of survival strategy, luxury shouldn’t come into the picture at all. All high energy consuming appliances and machines are to be strictly banned. Public mode transport should be made compulsory. Such bold steps can only salvage us.
If we are expecting a Sub-Sahara country to have an economy and living standards like USA then think how much of energy and resources are required. So called “Positive side” of the given case is that increase in demand which gives ample avenues for the growth of industries and increase in employment opportunities. Thus we can witness the increase in GDP of the nation. But what is the use of development if everything is going to end. Better opt a safer and wiser way which may be hard for the present times but useful in the long run. Even if single under developed country is transformed into a developed country estimate how much more % of energy is required for the running of such a nation. Another 25% of energy is required. Similarly 75% more polluted gases are released into the atmosphere. Are all these things desirable?
This doesn’t mean that we should stop developing. My main motto is to insinuate the consequences of growth without wisdom. In a nutshell, development requires increase in consumption of resources per person. So if we want to increase the consumption of resources per person without compromising in the absolute value of consumption of resources only option left is to decrease the population. If the development made this year causes us to increase the per capita increase in the resource consumption by X% then similar %(obviously the percentage is less than x, think how) of population decrement should be there. Only in that case we can think of long runs about human kind in the world. This idea will not be advocated by the industrialist because decrease in population causes them loose market demand initially. These industrialists are hand-in-glove with the politicians who won’t accept such bold steps. If things continue like this, then days are not far away when wars are raised just for oil and food, thus transforming the world into a chaos. Presently we all are in a mad run to make the Mayan civilization’s prediction of doomsday on Dec 21st, 2012 is true.
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