State of the World 2004

Progress Towards a Sustainable Society

Worldwatch Institute

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781134031450
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Politics & International Relations

State of the World 2004 takes a fresh look at the trends that have put the global economy on a collision course with the Earth's ecosystems. This year's edition has a special focus on the theme of consumption. It questions whether a less-consumptive society is possible; and concludes that it is essential. The book explores overconsumption, a by-product of affluence; and underconsumption, linked to poverty, and provides 'behind the scenes' exposes of the devastating environmental impacts of some of our most popular products, from plastic bags, to paper, to mobile phones.

Published annually in 28 languages, each edition draws on the breadth of expertise of Worldwatch's award-winning team of writers and researchers. State of the World is relied upon by national governments, UN agencies, development workers and law-makers for its authoritative and up-to-the-minute analysis and information. It is essential for anyone concerned with building a positive, global future.

CHAPTER 1

The State of Consumption Today

Gary Gardner, Erik Assadourian, and Radhika Sarin

Units of measure throughout this book are metric unless common usage dictates otherwise.

China has a well-deserved reputation as the land of the bicycle. Throughout the twentieth century, the streets of her cities were filled with literally millions of bikes, not only providing personal transportation but also serving as delivery vehicles—carrying everything from construction materials to chickens on their way to market. As recently as the early 1980s, few private cars were found on China’s streets.¹

A visitor from the 1980s who returns to Beijing, Shanghai, or other Chinese cities today will hardly recognize them. By 2002 there were 10 million private cars, and growth in ownership was accelerating: every day in 2003 some 11,000 more cars merged into the traffic on Chinese roads—4 million new private cars during the year. Auto sales increased by 60 percent in 2002 and by more than 80 percent in the first half of 2003. By 2015, if growth continues apace, industry analysts expect 150 million cars to be jamming China’s streets—18 million more than were driven on U.S. streets and highways in 1999. The emerging class of Chinese consumers is enthusiastically embracing the increased mobility and higher social status that the automobile now represents—millions wait months and take on significant debt in order to become pioneer members of China’s new automobile culture.²

The advantages of this development path are clear to the government officials who are encouraging it. Each new Chinese-made car provides two new jobs to Chinese workers, and the income they receive then stimulates other sectors of the Chinese economy. Moreover, the rush to meet demand is attracting massive investments by foreign companies—General Motors has spent $1.5 billion on a new factory in Shanghai, while Volkswagen has committed $7 billion over the next five years to increase its production capacity.³

China is of course following a well-blazed trail, albeit roughly eight decades after widespread use of the automobile first caught on in the United States. Yet China’s automobile story is tied to neither the Chinese nor the automobile. From fast food to disposable cameras and from Mexico to South Africa, a good deal of the world is now entering the consumer society at a mind-numbing pace. By one calculation, there are now more than 1.7 billion members of “the consumer class” today—nearly half of them in the “developing” world. A lifestyle and culture that became common in Europe, North America, Japan, and a few other pockets of the world in the twentieth century is going global in the twenty-first.⁴

The consumer society clearly has a strong allure, and carries with it many economic benefits. And it would certainly be unfair to argue that advantages gained by an earlier generation of consumers should not be shared by those who come later. Yet the headlong growth of consumption in the last decade—and the staggering projections that flow logically from that growth—suggest that the world as a whole will soon run smack into a stark dilemma. If the levels of consumption that several hundred million of the most affluent people enjoy today were replicated across even half of the roughly 9 billion people projected to be on the planet in 2050, the impact on our water supply, air quality, forests, climate, biological diversity, and human health would be severe.⁵

Despite the dangers ahead, there is little evidence that the consumption locomotive is braking—not even in countries like the United States, where most people are amply supplied with the goods and services needed to lead a dignified life. As of 2003 the United States had more private cars than licensed drivers, and gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles were one of the best-selling vehicles. New houses were 38 percent bigger in 2002 than in 1975, despite having fewer people in each household on average. Americans themselves are larger as well—so much bigger, in fact, that a multibillion-dollar industry has emerged to cater to the needs of large Americans, supplying them with oversized clothing, sturdier furniture, even supersized caskets. If the consumption aspirations of the wealthiest of nations cannot be satiated, the prospects for corralling consumption everywhere before it strips and degrades our planet beyond recognition would appear to be bleak.⁶

Yet there are many reasons to be hopeful. Consumer advocates, economists, policymakers, and environmentalists have developed creative options for meeting people’s needs while dampening the environmental and social costs associated with mass consumption. In addition to helping individuals find the balance between too much and too little consumption, they stress placing more emphasis on publicly provided goods and services, on services in place of goods, on goods with high levels of recycled content, and on genuine choice for consumers. Together, these measures can help deliver a high quality of life with a minimum of environmental abuse and social inequity. The key is to look critically not only at the “how much” of consumption, but also the “how.” (See Chapters 5 and 8.)

Consumption is not a bad thing. People must consume to survive, and the world’s poorest will need to consume more if they are to lead lives of dignity and opportunity. But consumption threatens the well-being of people and the environment when it becomes an end in itself—when it is an individual’s primary goal in life, for example, or the ultimate measure of the success of a government’s economic policies. The economies of mass consumption that produced a world of abundance for many in the twentieth century face a different challenge in the twenty-first: to focus not on the indefinite accumulation of goods but instead on a better quality of life for all, with minimal environmental harm.

Consumption by the Numbers

By virtually any measure—household expenditures, number of consumers, extraction of raw materials—consumption of goods and services has risen steadily in industrial nations for decades, and it is growing rapidly in many developing countries. The numbers tell the story of a world being transformed by a consumption revolution.

Private consumption expenditures—the amount spent on goods and services at the household level—topped $20 trillion in 2000, up from $4.8 trillion in 1960 (in 1995 dollars). Some of this fourfold increase occurred because of population growth (see Box 1–1), but much of it was due to advancing prosperity in many parts of the globe. These overall numbers mask enormous disparities in spending. The 12 percent of the world living in North America and Western Europe account for 60 percent of global private consumer spending, while the one third living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa account for only 3.2 percent. (See Table 1–1.)⁷

BOX 1–1. WHAT ABOUT POPULATION?

The United Nations Population Division projects that world population will increase 41 percent by 2050, to 8.9 billion people. Just as growing acquisition of appliances and cars can eliminate energy savings achieved by efficiency improvements, this increase in human numbers threatens to offset any progress in reducing the amount of goods that each person consumes. For example, even if the average American eats 20 percent less meat in 2050 than in 2000, total meat consumption in the United States will be roughly 5 million tons greater in 2050 due to population growth alone.

With 99 percent of global population growth projected to occur in developing nations, these countries need to consider carefully the twin goals of population stabilization and increased consumption for human development. The industrial world can help developing countries stabilize their populations by supporting family planning, education, and the improvement of women’s status. And it can lower the impact of increased consumption by assisting with the adoption of cleaner, more efficient technologies.

But it would be a mistake to think of population growth as a challenge facing only poor nations. When population growth and high levels of consumption mix, as they do in the United States, the significance of the former balloons. For example, although the U.S. population increases by roughly 3 million a year, whereas India’s increases by nearly 16 million, the additional Americans have greater environmental impact. They are responsible for 15.7 million tons of additional carbon to the atmosphere, compared with only 4.9 million tons in India. Wealthy countries with expanding populations need to look at the impact of both their consumption and their population policies.

Other less discussed demographic trends mix with consumption in surprising ways as well. For instance, as a result of rising incomes, urbanization, and smaller families, the number of people living under one roof fell between 1970 and 2000 from 5.1 to 4.4 in developing countries and from 3.2 to 2.5 in industrial countries, while the total number of households increased. Each new house requires space and materials, of course. In addition, savings gained from having more people share energy, appliances, and home furnishings are lost when fewer people live in the same house. Thus a one-person household in the United States uses 17 percent more energy per person than a two-person household does. So even in some European nations and Japan, where total population is not growing much if at all, changing household dynamics should be examined as drivers of increased consumption.

SOURCE: See endnote 7.

In 1999, some 2.8 billion people—two of every five humans on the planet—were living on less than $2 a day, which the United Nations and the World Ba...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of Boxes, Tables, and Figures
• Foreword
• Preface
• State of the World: A Year in Review
• 1 The State of Consumption Today
• 2 Making Better Energy Choices
• 3 Boosting Water Productivity
• 4 Watching What We Eat
• 5 Moving Toward a Less Consumptive Economy
• 6 Purchasing for People and the Planet
• 7 Linking Globalization, Consumption, and Governance
• 8 Rethinking the Good Life
• Notes
• Index