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For
years, industrial countries have raised the specter of the heavily populated
developing world threatening the earth’s environment by not controlling its
birth rate. However, on reflection, it is not so much the number of heads that
matter – a country’s population - as far as the use of natural resources is
concerned but, to put it somewhat crudely, what is in people’s bellies. In
other words, even countries with small populations can extract a bigger toll of
the environment if their per capita consumption of resources is very much
larger. And in an increasingly globalized world, consumers are accessing goods
produced far beyond their national frontiers.
This
year’s State
of the World report by the Worldwatch Institute in
Washington
does well to focus on the Consumer Society. In 2000, households throughout the
world spent some $20 trillion on goods and services – a fourfold increase from
1960. Worldwatch squarely addresses the issue by drawing attention to the fact
that 12 per cent of the world’s population living in
North America
and
Western Europe
account for 60 per cent of global consumer spending, while one-third living in
South Asia
and sub-Saharan
Africa
, the globe’s poorest regions, account for only 3.2 per cent.
Last
year, Americans had more cars than there were licensed drivers. New homes were
almost 40 per cent bigger than they were in 1975, although there were fewer
occupants in each household on average. As the report puts it, “Americans
themselves are larger as well – so much bigger, in fact, that a multi-billion
dollar industry has emerged to cater to the need of large Americans, supplying
them with oversized clothing, sturdier furniture and even super sized
caskets.”
Disparities
between Rich and Poor
Worldwatch
takes forward a pioneering Human
Development Report (HDR) brought out by the UN Development Programme (UNDP)
six years ago, which had also focused on consumption. The HDR pointed out that
the richest one-fifth of the world’s people consume 45 per cent of all the
fish and meat, while the poorest fifth just 5 per cent. The richest one-fifth
also consume 58 per cent of the world's total energy, while the poorest fifth
consumes less than 4 per cent. They also use 74 per cent of all the telephone
lines, while the poorest fifth have to make do with 1.1 per cent. In 1998, the
average African household consumed 20 per cent less, in general, than it did a
quarter of a century previously.
Astonishingly,
it showed that just 225 of the world’s richest people had a combined wealth of
over $1 trillion – equal to the annual income of nearly half the globe’s
people, numbering 2.5 billion at the time. Indeed, just the wealth of the 32
richest people exceeded the total GDP of all of
South Asia
.
While
the world is aware of such disparities in general, the extent certainly comes as
a shock. What is more, even within rich countries, the UNDP reported, between
7-17 per cent of the population are poor. The HDR devised a human poverty index
that found that
Sweden
had the least disparities, while the
US
had the greatest. In 1998, there were 100 million people in industrial
countries whose consumption standards were low and twice as many who were not
expected to survive beyond 60. More than 100 million were homeless and 37
million were unemployed.
Putting
Things into Perspective
This
year’s Worldwatch report, however, puts things in perspective by demonstrating
that there is now a global consumer class, which has annual incomes exceeding
$7,000 of purchasing power parity, a World Bank income measure adjusted for the
buying power in local currency. This number totals 1.7 billion people, which is
more than a quarter of the globe’s people.
It
will come as a big surprise to learn that almost half this global consumer class
lives in developing countries.
China
and
India
alone constitute a fifth of the global total. Together, such consumers in the
two most populous countries comprise 362 million, which is larger than this
class in all of
Western Europe
, even though the average Chinese or Indian consumes much less than his or her
European counterpart. There is no doubt that as incomes rise in developing
countries in future, and consumption standards rise in conjunction, the toll on
the environment will be very heavy.
Both
Worldwatch and UNDP are concerned with what can be done to keep consumerism in
check. This is easier said than done, given the globalization process and the
barrage of advertising that consumers all over the world are exposed to, thanks
particularly to satellite TV. An average American spends 1,000 hours over a
lifetime watching some 150,000 ads on TV. Even three years ago, global
advertising spending was estimated at $446 billion per year. Rural audiences are
being exposed to an increasing array of goods through this medium. The food
industry in
India
is growing by 40 per cent a year and is expected to notch up sales worth $1
billion by next year.
Worldwatch
pertinently questions if the global consumer class is experiencing a higher
quality of life as a result of its higher levels of consumption, given the
personal costs associated with this trend – not least, growing financial
indebtedness. The environmental limits to consumption have to be borne in mind,
so that all countries embark on a sustainable development path, keeping in mind
the needs of succeeding generations. The excessive use of natural resources
exacts a price in personal or societal well being and must be kept in check. In
all developing countries, for example, cities are battling with mountains of
waste, which will have to be reduced through recycling and other laws.
The
Washington-based think-tank also questions whether consumers are being truly
given sufficient choices, which advertising – especially with global brands
– restricts. It cites, for instance, how alternatives to the private
automobile, like mass public transport, amenities for pedestrians and cyclists
and car-sharing can offer people far better choices in everyday travel. On the
other hand, a desirable choice like organic food may not be affordable and such
industries, which are protective of the environment, ought to receive
appropriate subsidies in order to enable them to compete with mass-produced
food.
Finally,
Worldwatch asks whether societies can create a consumption ethic that gives
priority to meeting the basic needs of everyone. There are more people in the
world today who live on less than $2 a day than there are in the global consumer
class. UNDP goes further and calls for minimum consumption requirements for all
as a basic human right and as a policy objective in all countries. This would
include food security and priority public expenditures for basic social services
like health and education. It recommends incentives to develop “poor
people’s goods”, like low-cost housing materials, energy-saving equipment
and food storage systems. It also stresses the creation of institutions and
legal frameworks that secure people’s right to housing, to common property and
credit.
*
Darryl D’Monte is the founder President of the International
Federation of Environmental Journalists and is serving a second term till 2003.
He is also the Chairperson of the Forum of Environmental Journalists of
India
(FEJI) and a syndicated columnist and freelance writer. He has published two
books: “
Temples
or Tombs? Industry versus Environment: Three Controversies”, Center for
Science & Environment,
New Delhi
, 1985 and “Ripping the Fabric: The Decline of Mumbai and its Mills”,
Oxford
University
Press,
New Delhi
, 2002. He was previously the Resident Editor of the “Indian Express”
(1979-1981) and of the “Times of
India
” (1988-1994) in Mumbai. Your emails will be forwarded to him by contacting
the editor at: ScienceTech@islam-online.net
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