"according to the united nations statistical yearbook by 1971 the per capita rate of energy consumption was about sixty times greater than in india...so it would not have been too inaccurate to suggest that , for a realistic comparison of american population pressure with that of india, the ratio between their respective population ties should have been multiplied by a factor of sixty. the number of actual people per square mile in the united states was about on eighth of what it was in india . but if each american were was about sixty times as colossal as each indian, then american population pressure was equivalent to there being twelve billion people living the indian pace of life on territory as large as the united states." overshoot: the ecological basis of revolutionary change. william r catton, jr.____________________________________________________________________________
catton's book was written in 1982 ( still relevant despite all the deniers out there...easy to find but it is a scholarly work...there are footnotes, end notes, and a bibliography...weekend readers should probably skip it...and let me add that it isn't because it is too "smart" for anyone...it's just dry as dust in some really arid stretches ) ) and the figures he is quoting are, for reasons opaque to me, eleven years old at the time of writing..that does not invalidate the comparison, however, it just calls for an update...the indian subcontinent has come a long way towards the "developed" world in the intervening forty-two years and, according to the 2012 united nations statistical yearbook energy consumption in the u s is now only 4.62070819 times as much as that of india which reduces the u s population pressure compared to india from around twelve billion citizens " living the indian pace of life" to around 1,279,600,000 americans humming along like there's no tomorrow and no future generations to consider ( i have a granddaughter now and future projections make grandpa worried about quality of life for the little sweetie )...and that's the point...the whole fucking ponzi scheme of industrial capitalism is unsustainable but , of course, those in the hegemonic culture who control the privatization of socially created wealth ( and we are all privatizing that wealth...but the elite controls who gets what and they are greedy fuckers ) can't recognize this and their political creatures who bullshit us continually with campaigning rhetoric can't admit it either because, like the barometer called "the market", it is all built on faith and doubt collapses the system..well.. i am a heretic and heterodoxy in a time of faith is a dangerous business...but that never stopped me before...the chinese use nearly as much energy as we do and as the indians continue to close in on both of us , based on the use of completely non-renewable resources, things will be going bust...energy costs will not go down...they will continue to rise ( resource substitution is the valium of economists )...and so will conflicts...over water, oil, rare earths, and who gets how much of what's left..people are shits and brotherly love doesn't buy a summer home in the hamptons...of course that cottage will be useless when you can't find a way to get there.
