What’s Your Consumption Factor?

Interesting article by Jared Diamond in the Times of London about consumption, in particular how much more we, in the west, consume (in resources, energy) than those in the developing world.

What’s Your Consumption Factor?

Some optimists claim that we could support a world with nine billion people. But I haven’t met anyone crazy enough to claim that we could support 72 billion. Yet we often promise developing countries that if they will only adopt good policies — for example, institute honest government and a free-market economy — they, too, will be able to enjoy a first-world lifestyle. This promise is impossible, a cruel hoax: we are having difficulty supporting a first-world lifestyle even now for only one billion people.