China, India and Malthus

Gary, The important factor is the rate of adaptation to the limits on resources. In China, they will adapt very rapidly and don't have to worry about a population increase. They are building dams and irrigation systems to solve the water issues, building dozens of nuclear power plants to solve the energy issues along with dozens of coal to oil facilities (which could have CO2 sequestration added) for liquid fuels. We can't get a permit for alternatives in the time they build the systems. We can't adapt -- thanks to the activists veto power.

Dallas Weaver, Ph.D. @ 7:41 AM PDT, May 9, 2008

Yes, a 6% hit for to our economy from energy cost increases is not any worse that the economic hit we are taking from Bush's War and medical cost increases. If we eliminated payroll taxes -- they increase unemployment -- and put on an equivalent raw material and energy tax (only on non-renewable sources), we would more rapidly adapt the the changing world. Such tax shifts are the easy way to make raw materials and energy get a lot of attention, while reducing the actual amounts per unit GDP.

Dallas Weaver @ 7:26 AM PDT, May 9, 2008

Yes, everyone needs to agree with this article but was this not in the offing - and that is why one has to recall what Mahatma Gandhi, Father of the Indian Nation did once say "there is enough in this world for everyone's need but not enough for everyone's greed'. So the West will need to curtail its greed of oil, of food, of everything else...so that it satisfies the needs of the others on this planet. If we adhere by this mantra, we all shall live and prosper in an environmentally sustainable words or else there would be death, destruction and devastation.

Diwakar Thakore @ 3:25 AM PDT, May 9, 2008

Management, not production is the problem. Every country, every government, every person, who has easy access to resources, mismanages those resources. Motivation for conservation only really becomes significant when starvation looms. Today Myanmar is gladly accepting food which can be hoarded and sold for the benefit of government officials, Zimbabwe is in chaos because food and energy resources are controlled by the government, and Sudan is pumping oil and allowing starvation. We will see chaos because of management choices, not availability of resources.

randy @ 10:39 PM PDT, May 8, 2008

Suppose there is only 1 well in a village with 2 families. The capacity of the well is only able to support 15 persons. One of the families has 9 children and 2 adults, the second family has only 2 adults and 2 children. The first family is expecting 2 more children, does this mean that the second family will have to cut down on water usage to accomodate the first family? The solution is simple, the second family should move out. Find another a bigger and better well to set up a new village. To relate this to the situaltion the world is facing now, we need to quickly colonize other planets in our galaxy. Times is running out.

Albert Judah @ 8:03 PM PDT, May 8, 2008

Anyone who thinks India is "no longer" a poor country has never been there. There has been a rise of the wealthy and middle classes. But the poverty that exists in there, and which is widespread, is very real. The type of wealthy consumers you describe have always existed in the developing world - Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, even Pakistan.

Sophie @ 7:30 PM PDT, May 8, 2008