Resources Are Running Out

[Mizuna]

I hear a common discussion at least once a week, this conversation is the idea of the Earth running out of resources to maintain the same rate of human growth. I hear the ever constant idea that it is because of large population, thats right, people overly love to blame China.

The average human in China uses a lot less resources than the average person in New Zealand. Yet, people in my lectures love to blame it on them being over populated. This idea however, is rather pathetic.

Its something like, if the average Chinese citizen used the same amount of petrol and day as the average American citizen, fuel consumption that takes a year to go through, will now take a month. China has an incredibly low living standard, this is because of failure of past government, but are now increasing their consumption due to the path of capitalism. Is this a bad thing? In a economic sense no, its incredibly good, resource wise no.

Before the changes in their government China was a lot like other poor nations, they sold off their natural resources to the highest bidder to pay their international debts. Most of these went to America (No surprises there), and most countries still do, but China and Russia are now doing the same thing with buying resources, Africa seems to be the prime target. Recently I read in the paper that Russia and China are even suppling weapons to anti-government groups to try and get future deals. Don't think this means living standards will increase in China, because their government will struggle to even supply public goods to their people let alone common goods like health care. The biggest issue is really water and food, with genetic modifications the food problem might be able to get sorted out, but yes this will take more resources to do. Like India, most of the water used in China is heavily polluted, this is one of the biggest issues people should think about, not the fact they have a large population. I would dare to say, India and China recycle the most resources and goods, who else uses the same water over and over again? Exactly.

Still, the issue with water. There plain isn't enough, there will need to be a birth capacity to be placed on people in order for this issue to be solved, only plausible way for it to be done, that or the refining of materials from meteorites. Which will take to long, and things like to burn up when they hit the atmosphere, same with hydrogen and oxygen. The saddest thing about the birth capacity limit will be it would have to be below 1 for at least 50 years, why? Humans now enjoy long life, living through multiple generations. Even with one birth per person, there will be more people alive than there was before the cap. was put in place, sure won't grow at the same rate but any rate over 0 is to high until the problem is solved.

Or, we could do something that is totally shocking to the majority. Take global warming seriously, stop wasting resources. Stop complaining about petrol prices, then actually take the chance to go use public transport, stop wasting so much stuff. I won't say start recycling, specially paper, apparently the bleach used in the recycling process is more damaging to the environment than cutting down an actual tree. Nonetheless, don't recycle, I suggest you buy recycled goods. I mean seriously, is it recycling if recycled goods do not get used? Or is it just a trash pit on a self in your local mini-mart?

Imagine if all the countries started to live environmentally friendly, now that would be crazy. Until then, all our waste can be blamed on China.

Oh yeah, anyone else think we should give China some nuclear power plants to stop the pollution from the coal plants? Wait, the American Government would rather they destroy the world with pollution than have a challenge to their power.

In conclusion, population shouldn't be the entire blame for resource use, but also the way resources are used.

Side note:

There is 4 million people in New Zealand. There is 1 billion people in China. No thats a lie, in 2006 there was a recorded population of 4,076,140 and 1,313,973,713 in China. By saying there is 1 billion in China however, it would be 309,897,573 people further from the truth if you said there was no people in New Zealand. Awesome facts of life <3.

[BrassFusion]

honestly? i NEVER hear china being blamed for environmental/supply concerns. obviously they've got their shit in better control than we do in the states. they still have the birth limit, don't they?

our politicians have deemed that we'll be more convinced if they pretend those "problems" just aren't problems at all rather than attributing them to overpopulation. because hell... if the world is overpopulated, we'd have to start limiting our national population too. and that's the OPPOSITE of what our administration wants. that's why abortion is teetering on the edge of legality, that's why it's desirable to convert gay people back to straight and shun the ones who won't convert for fear of thought contamination.

our administration wants a huge poor working class. they already have it, of course, but it can never be too big.

so problems of clean air and water and oil supply are blamed on liberal panic artists who are operating a secret agenda to oppress the christians. china doesn't even come into the equation.

the middle east doesn't either, ironically. that's a whole nother ball of wax.

[Head Wreck]

china outstrip the US in fossil fuel burning. thier catching up with western civilisations technology wise at an increased pace, this is putting a larger drain on resouces causing the predicted date of fuel running out a lot sooner.

as far as the environment is concerned. i think we've just tipped over the scale on damage and things can only rapidly descend.

if only all those current green policies being introduced came 20 years ago.

dont say we didnt warn you

[Blackmail]

honestly? i NEVER hear china being blamed for environmental/supply concerns. obviously they've got their shit in better control than we do in the states. they still have the birth limit, don't they?

What? This is plain wrong. Furthermore you support illegal immigration but favor birth limits?

our politicians have deemed that we'll be more convinced if they pretend those "problems" just aren't problems at all rather than attributing them to overpopulation. because hell... if the world is overpopulated, we'd have to start limiting our national population too. and that's the OPPOSITE of what our administration wants. that's why abortion is teetering on the edge of legality, that's why it's desirable to convert gay people back to straight and shun the ones who won't convert for fear of thought contamination.

What?

our administration wants a huge poor working class. they already have it, of course, but it can never be too big.

Source? In fact the Per Capita Income of the poorest states have risen considerably during "this administration". The unemplyment rate had dropped since 2000 as has inflation. Where do you get your information?

so problems of clean air and water and oil supply are blamed on liberal panic artists who are operating a secret agenda to oppress the christians. china doesn't even come into the equation.

the middle east doesn't either, ironically. that's a whole nother ball of wax.

What?

The more liberal (but still ultimately conservative Bill Clinton) pretty much did nothing with Kyoto.

Where exactly do you get your opinions from?

[BrassFusion]

no, i don't favor a birth limit. i wonder why you think I do.

[Shade Everdark]

Source? In fact the Per Capita Income of the poorest states have risen considerably during "this administration". The unemployment rate had dropped since 2000 as has inflation. Where do you get your information?

One might similarly ask you where you get your information from.

[Blackmail]

One might similarly ask you where you get your information from.

One I work for a bank and work with the federal reserve and it's part of my job to know these things.

Two, economic numbers are pretty easy to look up with this powerful tool called GOOGLE.

So tell me if you really want to debate numbers with me?

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104652.html

Thanks Shade!

[BrassFusion]

per capita is average, correct? what does a calculation of the average income by state tell us if the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, particularly in the context of inflation?

[BrassFusion]

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-87106490.html

this was a link from your link, ted. wish i had the entire article

[Mizuna]

Of course China uses more fuels than America... First off they don't use nuclear power to the extent America does, so being oblivious to the fact the majority of their power source is from fossil burning power plants is just stupid. Not just that but an estimation of 301,693,000 for population in America to date, I think the 1 billion people within China that out weigh the American population might have an affect on the use of resources.

Use your brain, it wasn't about who uses the most resources, but resource efficiency. In other words, China is a lot better at it, than say America. Though people seem to overly love blaming the fact that recourses are running out on China here in New Zealand.

Still inflation rules, you can't blame it on people if they know that its smarter to specialize than be a jack of all trades. Thats just stupid.

[BrassFusion]

using non-renewable resources efficiently is STILL using non-renewable resources... don't they have solar/geothermal/hydro techs? they've got the longest river in the world over there, for one thing...

[Mizuna]

using non-renewable resources efficiently is STILL using non-renewable resources... don't they have solar/geothermal/hydro techs? they've got the longest river in the world over there, for one thing...

Pretty sad coming from an American. Specially one who is complaining about how the petrol prices are a pain to how much petrol she uses, a non-renewable one at that. Thats why there was a suggestion to give them nuclear power plants lol. As for me, I come from a hippy powered country that relies heavily on wind, geothermal (Which can only be used because it suits some places in New Zealand, isn't exactly renewable though) and hydro dams. Go hippy power, anyone want to give use a nuclear power plant too :(?

[Shade Everdark]

One I work for a bank and work with the federal reserve and it's part of my job to know these things.

Two, economic numbers are pretty easy to look up with this powerful tool called GOOGLE.

So tell me if you really want to debate numbers with me?

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104652.html

Thanks Shade!

I mentioned nothing about wanting to debate with you. I was, however, pointing out the patent hypocrisy of criticizing someone for her lack of sources whilst providing no sources of your own, in that particular post.

[BrassFusion]

Pretty sad coming from an American. Specially one who is complaining about how the petrol prices are a pain to how much petrol she uses, a non-renewable one at that. Thats why there was a suggestion to give them nuclear power plants lol. As for me, I come from a hippy powered country that relies heavily on wind, geothermal (Which can only be used because it suits some places in New Zealand, isn't exactly renewable though) and hydro dams. Go hippy power, anyone want to give use a nuclear power plant too :(?

what the hell... i wasn't complaining about gas prices...

[ZhukovCodeslinger]

Im surprised that nobody has proposed wiping out most of the middle east, India, and China as a solution to population and consumption of resources.

Oh well... im sure that will come up someday

[glc]

HA, dude, I hope you were joking, if you want to wipe out the largest consuming country, you'd better plant a bomb in your own backyard. Since we are citing sources, check this out...

"For many resources, the United States of America is the world's largest consumer in absolute terms. For a list of 20 major traded commodities, it takes the greatest share of 11 of them: corn, coffee, copper, lead, zinc, tin, aluminum, rubber, oil seeds, oil and natural gas. For many more it is the largest per-capita consumer." http://atlas.aaas.org/index.php?part=2

[Troy Spiral (13)]

In terms of "suckage per person" North America wins by a landslide, no question, not even a controversial point.

Just as a more general longer term concept , eventually technology/culture is expected to reach a fairly stable worldwide "average" and at that time suckage (my scientific term for non-renewable resource use lol) will be fairly uniform. Then it will be about population centers suckage, and then we can blame regions based more on population than habits.

Related but not essential for my above point:

Population s one of my pet subjects and im not sure I've ever heard blame china for overpopulation by any mainstream accepted scientists.

But at any rate the acceleration of world population growth peaked in the early 60s and the rate of acceleration has been declining (yes really) ever sense. In the last few years the consensus is that population growth will peak at around 9-10 billion somewhere in the 2050-3000 range and will start to slow down. No real danger of worldwide overpopulation, only regional overpopulation (and thus perhaps resource suckage might be centered around populations, rather than tech/habits)

Africa is the only region expected to have a significantly larger % of the total worlds population at the 9.5 billion crest than it does today.

Oceania, North America, South America all are expected to be about the same % by 2050ish Asia and err... i know im missing one.. are expected to be slightly less than they currently are as a total % of the worlds population.

[BrassFusion]

I still think the goal should be to eliminate suckage everywhere across the board.

call me naive for even thinking it's possible, but HELL, if we're using non-renewable resources we'll EVENTUALLY run out and have to stop using them. it would be awful big of us 21st-century types to make the transition easier than just increasing global mass hysteria as resources dry up.

it would've been awfully big of 20th century people if they made the transition easier on us. we could've had electric cars by now, at the very least...

[Troy Spiral (13)]

I still think the goal should be to eliminate suckage everywhere across the board.

Oh yeah no question. Renewable energy is cool for many reasons but one key one I've been thinking about recently is that lasts virtually forever but more close to home... the price of it is generally technology based rather than based on limited resources (oil, gas , etc)

As tech improves this "lasts forever" resources just gets less and less expensive. Be nice going to the pump to find out that the solar-generated fuel (just an example) for my car went DOWN in price yet again this year because the tech to make it improved again.

[Mizuna]

what the hell... i wasn't complaining about gas prices...

I would like to apologize to BrassFusion, my memory isn't to flash, and I mistook her for one of the people who were complaining about how much petrol cost. Where she was actually talking about how boycotting would fail to work. Sorry.

As Troy said about how they only have a large fixed set up cost, but a low variable cost, that is the best thing about them. It really only takes maintenance to run them. To bad when it first came around at the fuel prices it was still cheaper to run non-renewable power options. Now though, even though its economically wrong, people aren't to happy with it due to it would result in large sunk costs (i.e. the old power plants)

As for ZhukovCodeslinger, thats what the thread is about... People who are actually ignorant enough to say that... I know your statement about the middle east was pretty politically based due to the war, but hey I am sure the middle east estimated population of 285,000,000 is a hell of a lot larger than America's of 302,000,000. Let alone the difference in how much the middle eastern countries consume, because you know, they have really easy access to water and food. Sure they are on a huge stock pile of fuel, doesn't mean they have the means to use it, America has a big stock pile to, but that doesn't make them stop drilling in other countries. Stop being a Jack Ass.

[BrassFusion]

hmm... we're a sarcastic bunch, mizuna... i dunno zhukov that well but it's possible he wasn't being serious

[Mizuna]

Yeah, I am well aware, but putting the argument forward for the sake of arguing was worth it .

[ZhukovCodeslinger]

I hate to break it to you, but there are plenty of people out there who are ok with our rate of consumption and would be happy to eliminate those said groups to allow our consumption to continue. (I am not even going to broach the subject of wiping out afformentioned groups based on religion (non christian), political (communist), so called barbarism (traditional african or middle eastern values) or based on their own desire to force the rest of the world to adopt their 600 A.D. based society and religion (Islam).

All I am saying is that there are lots of people offering this sort of solution to the consumption and population problem and the "would be victims" are not helping much to disuade a growing opinons against them (terrorism, abuse of women, overpopulaton, refusal to take HIV seriously, religious extremeism which supports the genocide in sudan).

Never underestimate one societys' willingness to exterminate (or ignore the extermination of ) another society.

HA, dude, I hope you were joking, if you want to wipe out the largest consuming country, you'd better plant a bomb in your own backyard. Since we are citing sources, check this out...

"For many resources, the United States of America is the world's largest consumer in absolute terms. For a list of 20 major traded commodities, it takes the greatest share of 11 of them: corn, coffee, copper, lead, zinc, tin, aluminum, rubber, oil seeds, oil and natural gas. For many more it is the largest per-capita consumer." http://atlas.aaas.org/index.php?part=2

[glc]

Wow dude, there's no shortage of opinion there, I'm scratching my head wondering where to start....

[BrassFusion]

zhuk, even if we wiped out everyone else, we'd STILL run out of non-renewable resources, and if we didn't prepare ourselves for shortages (we sure haven't so far), there would be a societal apocalypse. our infrastructure would devolve way past that of developing countries, and probably further, because we're really just soft dairy cows compared to most africans and middle easterns. we can't live without our fucking hot showers and beer fridges and handheld massage wands. remember the blackout of '03? it'd be like that, but for months, if not years. plus panic, of course. like hurricane katrina, but fema won't be around to EVENTUALLY step in and put our shit back together.

and don't think it won't happen. we americans are excellent at wasting and procrastinating.