Resource Consumption and Usage

Current Status of Resources

Natural resources are currently under increasing pressure, threatening environmental and human health and development. Water shortages; soil exhaustion; loss of forests; air, soil, and water pollution; and degradation of coastlines afflict many areas. As the world's population grows, improving living standards without destroying the resource base/environment is not only a local and regional issue but also a global challenge.

Most of the developed countries currently consume resources much faster than they can regenerate. Most developing countries with rapid population growth face the urgent need to improve living standards. Seventy-five percent of energy resources are consumed by 25 percent of the population in developed countries. They also consume more than 70 percent of mineral resources (copper, steel, aluminum, etc.), 75 percent of cars, 75 percent of newsprint, timber, and so on. Furthermore, 70 percent of carbon is emitted by this population. One American child requires more than 30 times as much resources as an Indian child. Decarbonization requires shifts in energy policy, dramatic technical progress, and major changes in consumption patterns of the rich. Paradoxically, the poor aspire to follow the path taken by the rich tomorrow. Three-quarters of the poorest families live in rural areas and still depend in large measure on natural resources for their existence; they remain vulnerable and their future insecure.

The ecological footprint concept is very relevant when we consider the issue of increasing resource consumption. It is the area of productive land and water—global hectares (“fair earth share” value)—ecosystems require to produce the resources that a population consumes and to assimilate/absorb the wastes that the population produces, wherever on Earth that land and water may be located over a certain time period (usually a year).

[Page 387]Because human impact on ecosystems/resources is a function of population, affluence, and technology, reducing the global footprint will require a combination of population stabilization and reductions in consumption and waste levels, which can be facilitated by the development of lower-impact technologies.

Global footprint or “Earthshare” in 2001 was 2.2 global hectares/capita, although the bio-capacity was only 1.80. In 2003, humanity's ecological footprint exceeded the Earth's biocapacity by over 20 percent, and in 2006 by 40 percent. Thus, the ecological footprint is essentially a dynamic concept because of population change and composition, technology change (in the supply chain), changes to the amount of resources consumed, and changes in the types of resources consumed.

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