We consume lots of oil?

Question

I was tuning in on CNN today and cafferty or whatever his name is said that we are 5% of the world yet we consume 25% of the world's oil. That is crazy! I still dont get how we are 5%. We have 300 million people, the third most in the world. If we are the third most populated country in the world, how can we be only 5%. Your take on all this?

Answer 1

Sure it sounds crazy. But, as the others have answered, the math makes sense. They (CNN) make the point to assert that we are gas guzzling gluttons who are wasting the worlds resources.

Although we tend to shun public transportation and more fuel efficient cars, we are still the bread basket to the world. Compare our economic output to the energy we consume and we look pretty good. We take that oil and we create goods, agricultural products, and services that serve and support the rest of the world. Shut us down and the rest of the world would suffer.

Answer 2

there is close to 6 billion people and we are not at 300 million yet. DO the math. As to oil consumption, we not only have the most cars, oppose to china who has 1 and a quarter billion people who has almost no cars and India who has a billion people and has way bellow the average vehicles we use oil in everything we produce. Flying consume alot more fuel per person than driving, while the most common long distance method of travel for China and India is by Train, the least fuel intensive means to travel. It take a lot of fuel to produce food in america, oppose to the third world. We use oil to make fertilizer, we use oil intensive farming equipment, we need insecticide which is made from oil, and we tend to transport our food long distance rather than to local markets. We need fuel to make the plastics we use, not only for hard goods, but for packaging. We use oil in many of our goods that we don't even know. We still even use oil to produce some electricity. That is how U.S. has become the most productive nation.

Answer 3

The total world population is about 6 billion people. Five percent of that is 300 million. The statistics are correct.

Answer 4

If you plot total energy consumption vs. gross domestic product per capita you will see that almost all countries, including the U.S. fall on a single line. It takes energy to create wealth and the U.S. is the greatest wealth creater in the world. Our energy usage is somewhat oil driven, however, compared to say France where 75% of the electricity is produced by nuclear power plants.

Answer 5

Yes this country has 300 million people in it but we are still five percent. They aren't going by country, so Africa alone has around three billion people in it, same with Asia. South America and Europe have maybe one or two billion.

Answer 6

Its because we are one of the countries that has the most automobiles. China has the largest population but alot of people use alternate types of transportation like bikes to get places. People in the US like their cars.

Answer 7

The population of the world is estimated at 8,000,000,000. The population of the US is estimated at 300,000,000.
300,000,000/8,000,000,000 = 0.375 = 3.75% of the world's population, which is actually less than 5%