Jared Diamond on why 32 is a scary number.

Early in December, we wrote and submitted to the NYTimes Op-Ed page an essay on the perils of our consumption-oriented society. The essay did not get selected. We can take heart, however, in the fact that the message got printed anyway. In today’s paper (Wed, January 2, 2008), Jared Diamond’s essay squarely tackles the issue of consumption, global population and standards of living. He writes that the

“average rates at which people consume resources like oil and metals, and produce wastes like plastics and greenhouse gases, are about 32 times higher in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia than they are in the developing world….If India as well as China were to catch up [to Western consumption rates], world consumption rates would triple. If the whole developing world were suddenly to catch up, world rates would increase elevenfold. It would be as if the world population balooned to 72 billion people (retaining present consumption rates).

This is an important essay and an important message, please read it in full here.