Week 6

What’s Your Consumption?
The article What’s Your Consumption brings up great pints to argue about why people in third world countries are much more likely to feel resentment towards first world countries and consumers. However, I do not agree with writer Jared Diamond when he insinuated that all third world countries want to have the first class lifestyle. Everyone wants a better lifestyle but to live as most of the first world is killing our planet. It is unfair to keep the undeveloped world in poverty while all the resources are greatly depleted by the developed countries. A good idea would be to keep consumption at a constant rate never increasing. As our population increases and developing countries start becoming more and more advanced our consumption must stay the same. This means new technologies have to be developed and should be developed in the already developed countries to solve consumption problems.
First world consumers should be decreasing to make up for developing countries that don’t yet have the resources for solar or wind technology. Coal is the cheapest source of power but one of the largest polluters. Since coal is so inexpensive many developing countries see it as a viable source of energy and power. Yet coal is still being burned for energy in the developed U.S. where they have the resources and the technology to use much ore efficient and eco-friendly forms of power. Consumption must decrease in order for life to be sustainable.
One line in this article really stood out to me. The fact that if the entire world was put upon a level playing field with all consumption that of the First World that it would translate to consuming enough resource for 72 billion people when the world only has about 6.5 billion people right now. This statistic alone should relate how piggish people are in the developed countries. I don’t want to sound as if I am not one of these first world consumers, because I am very likely as guilty as the next but it about a broader change, a change in perception and lifestyle that will precipitate throughout the world.