Learning from China

COULD THE AMERICAN DREAM IN CHINA become a nightmare for the world? Millions of Chinese already are living like Americans. Although these U.S.-style consumers only are a small fraction of the population, China's claims on the Earth's resources are becoming highly visible. For instance, China has replaced the U.S. as the world's leading consumer of most basic commodities, including grain, coal, and steel. Now the question is: What if consumption per person of these resources in China one day reaches the current U.S. level? Moreover, how long will it take for China's average annual income of $5,300 per person to reach the U.S. figure of $38,000?

During the time since the far-reaching economic reforms of 1978, China's economy has been growing at an annual breakneck pace of 9.5%. If it now were to grow at eight percent per year, doubling every nine years, income per person in 2031 for China's projected population of 1,450,000,000 would reach $38,000. (At a more conservative six percent annual growth rate, the economy would double every 12 years, overtaking the current U.S. income per person in 2040.)

For this exercise, we will assume an eight percent annual economic growth rate. If the Chinese consume resources in 2031 as voraciously as Americans do now, grain consumption per person there would climb from 291 kilograms today to the 935 kilograms needed to sustain a U.S.-style diet rich in meat, milk, and eggs. In 2031, China would consume 1,352,000,000 tons of grain, far above the 382,000,000 used in 2004. This is equal to two-thirds of the entire 2004 world grain harvest of just over 2,000,000,000 tons. Given the limited potential for further raising the productivity of the world's existing cropland, producing an additional 1,000,000,000 tons of grain for consumption in China would require converting a large part of Brazil's remaining rainforests to grain production.

With energy, the numbers are even more startling. If the Chinese use oil at the same rate as Americans do now, by 2031, China would need 99,000,000 barrels of oil a day. The world currently produces 79,000,000 barrels per day and may never output much more than that. Moreover, if China's coal burning were to reach the current U.S. level of nearly two tons per person, the country would use 2,800,000,000 annually--300,000,000 more than current world production.

Apart from the unbreathable air that such coal use would create, carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning in China alone would rival those of the entire world today. Climate change could spiral out of control, undermining food security and inundating coastal cities.

If steel consumption per person in China were to climb to the U.S. level, China's aggregate steel use would jump from 258,000,000 tons to 511,000,000, more than the current consumption of the entire Western industrialized world. Also, consider the use of paper, another hallmark of modernization. If China's meager annual consumption of 27 kilograms of paper per person were to rise to the current U.S. level of 210 kilograms, China would need 303,000,000 tons of paper, roughly double the current world production of 157,000,000 tons. There go the world's forests.

What about cars? If automobile ownership in China were to reach the U.S. level of 0.77 cars per person (three cars for every four people), China would have a fleet of 1,100,000,000 vehicles in 2031--well beyond the current world fleet of 795,000,000. The paving of land for roads, highways, and parking lots for such an onslaught would approach the total area now planted for rice.

The point of these projections is not to blame China for consuming so much, but rather to learn what happens when a large segment of humanity moves quickly up the global economic ladder. The economic model that evolved in the West--the fossil-fuel-based, auto-centered, throwaway economy--will not work for China simply because there are not enough resources.

If it does not work for China, the same goes for India, which has an economy growing at seven percent per year and a population projected to surpass China's in 2030. Nor will it succeed for the other 3,000,000,000 people in the developing world who also want to consume like Americans. Perhaps most important, in an increasingly integrated global economy where all countries are competing for the same dwindling resources, it will not continue to be beneficial for the 1,200,000,000 who currently live in the affluent industrial societies either.

The sooner we recognize that our existing economic model cannot sustain economic progress, the better it will be for the entire world. The claims on the Earth by the existing model at current consumption levels are such that we are fast depleting the energy and mineral resources on which our modern industrial economy depends.

We also are consuming beyond the sustainable yield of the Earth's natural systems. As we overcut, overplow, overpump, overgraze, and overfish, we are consuming not only the interest from our natural endowment, we are devouting the endowment itself. In ecology, as in economics, this leads to bankruptcy.