entire habitat was so damaged by the overshoot that the number of reindeer fell drastically below the original carrying capacity and by 1966 there were only 42 reindeer alive on St. Mathew Island. These last 42, save one very sick male, were all female.
Now the world’s resource pies are finite and the more that wish to consume them in our fast paced globalised world, the faster the plates will be cleared. China now sits at the table and aspires to eat as much as that of the United States. If their hunger continues at current rates by 2030 with an economic growth of 8% increase in activity annually, it will have grown from a benchmark of today; let’s call that 100%, to a staggering 466% on today’s consumption rate!
Let’s look at some of the commodities it presently enjoys gobbling up to give some perspective on that.
Note where weights are referred to as tonne/s, metric tonnes is the reference, and where referred to as ton/s imperial measurements are quoted.
Today China consumes 530 million tonnes of steel per annum (
en.cbichina.com). By 2020, assuming an annual compounded growth of 8% per year, it may consume 1,144 million tonnes, and by 2030 it may consume 2,470 million tonnes per year.
China consumes 76 million tonnes of paper and paperboard (
fordaq.com). By 2020 it may
consume 164 million tonnes, and by 2030 it may consume 354 million tonnes per year; there go the world’s trees!
China consumes 1.4 billion tonnes of cement (
theoildrum.com). By 2020 it may be consuming 3 billion tonnes, and by 2030 it may consume 5.525 billion tonnes per year. And let’s not forget that a tonne of cement in production contributes 1 tonne of CO2 per tonne of production (5.525 billion tonnes of CO2 potential by 2030).
China consumes per capita 14 kilos of aluminum per capita or 18.7 million tonnes per year now (population as at January 2010 was 1,335,007,550) (
wikipedia.org). So by 2020 it may be gobbling through 40 million tonnes per annum, and by 2030 it may be consuming 87.16 million tonnes per year. And what, I hear you ask, is the CO2 contribution of that? Well, per kilo, aluminium has an environmental impact of 18 kilos of CO2-e per kilo!
So what about these resource pies? How much of the pie do we have left? Let’s just take one example: in 2005, 14.9 million tons of copper were produced with estimated world copper reserves at 940 million tons; with demand increasing, we may run out by 2050. One of our favourite discussions in our fossil fuel dependent and driven economies is to look at oil and coal. So how are we doing with
Economic & Environmental Sustainability – An Oxymoron?
Issue 4 | February/March 2010