How can everyone in the world aspire to the same standard of living as the USA?

Question

if the USA (6%?) of the world's population uses more than 40% of the available resources?

Many of the resources of the world are finite. There is not going to be more copper, iron, and other minerals.
Is some inaginary being going to wave a magic wand and create what has gone?

Angel Baby: Isn't using more than your fair share condemning other people to poverty?
How do you get that forty percent? It does not all come from your own country.

Answer 1

That would be impossible. As it were from the results taken at the
website: http://www.earthday.net/footprint/index.asp

We would need a multiple number of earths to support us all.
Simply impossible.

Answer 2

Wow. Good question. Covered pretty well by fennel's 'short answer'! But, I guess I'm hoping that people will be more concerned with the health of the planet then having more taco chips or do-hickeys. America could use some priority lessons. Having too much is not what everyone wants. I'm waiting for the day that business will see that it's in their interests to preserve the resources. I'm waiting for the day when factories etc. have to deal with their impact on environment. Am I dreaming? I know there's a way. What if we, the consumer, use our buying power to make a statement.

Answer 3

Standard of living does not necessarily relate equally and directly to the consumption of natural resources. Our early and rapid development over such a vast territory has created a wasteful society, other nations have developed more slowly and economically. In the case of undeveloped countries, their development will have the benefit of efficient technology and processes. Much like the income despairities that exist today, the gap in the use of natural resources will eventually narrow.


Or the simple answer is that aspiration costs nothing.

Answer 4

Short answer: They can't.

They can try, for sure, but such a strain as would result from everyone's mad dash for material wealth will almost certainly drain non-renewable resources and damage the environment perhaps irrevocably. Look, for a sort of microcosm, at China's modernization: use of coal and oil for power combined with automobile smog has led to severe acid rainfall and respitory illnesses, and that's only the existing urban population. Or, look to Easter Island: overpopulation combined with a liberalization of the social order led to overforesting, desertification, and an implosion of the tiny society including severe war and cannibalism.

There are three outcomes to the scenario as I understand it, which I will examine in the order of what I believe is most likely.

Scenario One: Everyone tries to attain an American standard of living, but resource shortages force the entire world to accept a lower standard of living, including for the Americans. An alternative Scenario One would show Americans and other industrialized nations voluntarily lowering their living standards while allowing the rest of the world to catch up such that eventually living standards are equally low.

Scenario Two: Industrialized nations institute a neo-imperialist policy in order to keep dwindling resources to themselves, allowing living standards to remain high for some nations but forcing abysmally poor living standards on the rest of the world. This would require almost unimagined military will and power, which I doubt could happen. The War on Terror would seem a very minor exercise in comparison. An alternative Scenario Two would feature the mass extermination of a very large proportion of the current population, so that survivors can maintain a high standard of living with limited resources. Again, quite unlikely to imagine happening.

Scenario Three: Everyone tries to attain an American-like standard of living and succeeds due to advances in technology. I can't predict what kind of technology would allow this, but it's remotely possible that some breakthrough might save us all.

Answer 5

Gotta love population control through nature. Darwin said nature's fittest will survive. If we American's have worked ourselves into a position of having a higher standard of living than many countries and being the so-called richest nation, it's because of the nature of the people living here. Why is that when a hurricane or typhoon or other disasterous weather condition erupts, it usually hits a third-world country where tens of thousands die? Katrina was our worst disaster and we didn't even break 10,000 dead. It was the same for the 9/11 bombings.

Survival of the fittest.

Answer 6

they should try freedom..it works for everyone. Britain uses a disproportionate amount of resources compared to population too. because they too are free to pursue economic activity free from interference from oligarchs

Answer 7

Elect an academically challenged president who will give billions of dollars in corporate welfare while telling the poor to stand on their own two feet.

Answer 8

It's called Survival of the Fittest.

Answer 9

They don't have to aspire to be like us. They will have the things that we have after we self-destruct from being unresourcesful and after the Chinese Ecocnomy because the number one economy over the nex ten years.

Answer 10

The pie will grow to the size it needs to be.