Three Planets Short
The National Geographic Channel has been showing a program called "The Human Footprint." Actually, however, this is a bad title. It should instead be called "The American Footprint." The "footprint" being discussed barely applies to the 95 percent of humans who are not American. Nevertheless, for just that reason this hour of viewing should be required TV fare for every American. This means that actually few will see it.
The program is important because it uses vividly graphic means to show the impact that almost all Americans have on the resources of the planet, renewable or not, by presenting images of the total number of various basic items that an average U.S. citizen uses in one lifetime. This program is therefore a great way of stacking up against his countrymen one's own record as a consumer and also as a waster and polluter.
It was amazing and uncomfortable to see all of nearly two dozen kinds of items that these NGC people appropriated from somewhere and piled up all together in one place to illustrate just how much in the way of food, energy, and materials on the one hand use and on the other dispose of in a lifetime. With so many people around, especially the 304,000,000 Americans, it's a wonder that it has taken this long for serious cracks to start opening in the planet's ability to deal with it. For example, the NGC crew arrayed across a whole parking lot 43,371 closely packed cans of soda. That amazing number is how many just one average American pops open and drinks in a lifetime.
Near its end the program zeroed in on the nub of things with the following statement: If everyone in the world lived like we Americans do, we'd need at least four planets to meet our demand for resources and to absorb our waste and pollution.
That means that willy-nilly the fat is in the fire, and there's nothing for it. Because, whereas Americans are ready to fight to the death any attempt to take away any of their lavish life style, especially the 25 percent of the planet's oil that they feel they have the God-given right to hog and also to buy cheaply, that world is filling up with other populations who are eager to attain -- and readying themselves to fight for -- the same standard of living. Yet, to reach that point we are always three planets short. Therefore somewhere something serious has to give, and with India, China, and Brazil in mind just for starters, that process is already well underway.
The program is important because it uses vividly graphic means to show the impact that almost all Americans have on the resources of the planet, renewable or not, by presenting images of the total number of various basic items that an average U.S. citizen uses in one lifetime. This program is therefore a great way of stacking up against his countrymen one's own record as a consumer and also as a waster and polluter.
It was amazing and uncomfortable to see all of nearly two dozen kinds of items that these NGC people appropriated from somewhere and piled up all together in one place to illustrate just how much in the way of food, energy, and materials on the one hand use and on the other dispose of in a lifetime. With so many people around, especially the 304,000,000 Americans, it's a wonder that it has taken this long for serious cracks to start opening in the planet's ability to deal with it. For example, the NGC crew arrayed across a whole parking lot 43,371 closely packed cans of soda. That amazing number is how many just one average American pops open and drinks in a lifetime.
Near its end the program zeroed in on the nub of things with the following statement: If everyone in the world lived like we Americans do, we'd need at least four planets to meet our demand for resources and to absorb our waste and pollution.
That means that willy-nilly the fat is in the fire, and there's nothing for it. Because, whereas Americans are ready to fight to the death any attempt to take away any of their lavish life style, especially the 25 percent of the planet's oil that they feel they have the God-given right to hog and also to buy cheaply, that world is filling up with other populations who are eager to attain -- and readying themselves to fight for -- the same standard of living. Yet, to reach that point we are always three planets short. Therefore somewhere something serious has to give, and with India, China, and Brazil in mind just for starters, that process is already well underway.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 2:13 PM
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