Oct 20, 2006 7:47:56 PM cite

It's hard to make the average person in a rich country (perhaps the most important vessel of change because their footprint is so large) give up materialism. The current economic belief system was created long ago to drive the allocation of necessary goods - food, water, basic clothing and shelter. For many in the developing world, these basic necessities are taken as a given, and we now use the same economic belief system to drive the allocation of our wants. As long as we keep pursuing our material 'wants' as though they are 'needs', we will never be satisfied, for needs are finite but wants are infinite. I will keep 'needing' a car (for example), so long as others' expectations are that I have a car and can commute with the level of time efficiency that a car affords. Taken out of that context of expecations, I will find that I don't, in fact, 'need' a car. Social survival does not equal biological survival, because while we will always need food and water, we will stop 'needing' cars when social expectations change. What I'm trying to say, is the world can only compensate for growing resource use by changing the social environment and its expectations that currently drive us to 'need' our 'wants'.

by iubiam

Sep 9, 2006 2:50:00 PM cite

Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: The answer to this question is in the question itself. We, people of the developted countries, had to think about this question very seriously. Of course, all these things are connected with each other, that´s why we should think of energy distribution and development of new technology, of new system, where we could reduce fossil fuel use because using this fuel we contaminate air and water. We should think how to finance projects connected with development of new technologies, technologies of new energy sources, which are environmentally friendly such as solar, wind and water energy as well as many other energy sources. Modern technology and science are able to develop and use this energy. And that is a solution to this problem. We don´t have so much energy resources. The scientists of some countries have counted that by the end of 2020, energy resources would be exhausted. So we would be forced to find the solution of this problem. But using all economic and intellectual resources we would be able to solve this problem in a scientific way.

by Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva

Sep 9, 2006 2:50:00 PM cite

Abbas Beydoun: When we were asked whether the life of one person is more valuable than another one, we could have answered with yes, because that is what is happening now in the world. Sometimes one person consumes, enjoys, earns money, has free time, gets power, breathes pure air and gets pure water ten times more than the others, which means that there is problem in the world. This problem can be sensed because the world has changed to be a small village. In this issue, we can not suggest anything, but we just should realize that the current world system is corrupt, so we should prepare a strong and clean world for the next generations.

by Abbas Beydoun

Sep 9, 2006 2:50:00 PM cite

Alvaro Restrepo: Once more, the subject of balance and imbalance. I think, that the problems we have were caused by all these disproportions that exist in the world: the countries that produce less than they consume or countries that are wasting their resources and food, while in other parts of the world people die from hunger. This kind of disproportion causes chaos, which we have to flee somehow. I don´t know, how we can compensate the energy needs and resource consumption of the developing countries. I think, it´s time for developed countries to wake up. They are sometimes blinded by their "own welfare" and are not aware that such a state is not real.

by Alvaro Restrepo

Sep 9, 2006 2:50:00 PM cite

Ana Lucy Bengochea:

by Ana Lucy Bengochea

Sep 9, 2006 2:50:00 PM cite

Andries Botha: Nathan, the world will not compensate. This is as you point out, you know and China and India are coming on and will be on full throttle, it doesn’t mean the United States will decelerate. So it means that the energy will have to come out of the earth. And as I said before I don’t believe that innovation is going to be responsive in any way, preemptively responsive. It’ll be reactively responsive. So, the world cannot compensate. You know it looks like we’re just going to drown the world. Just suck up from the world all the energy, all the non-renewable energy. And what that means to the world God only knows. You know I don’t know what happens if you just suck all the oil out of the earth. I don’t know what that means to the atmosphere when global warming starts taking effect. There’s deforestation and there’s desertification. You know. The world will not compensate. The world will – the way we live will change. The things we’ve taken for granted will change. The sun, the wind, the rain, the smell, the texture, all of this will change. We will change. We will become sicker. So, yeah. You know I don’t – how will the world compensate? I think the world will not compensate. I also know that countries, continents, that will provide resources, Africa, South Americas, they will have to become the hunting grounds of the First World as it consumes and responds to its energy demands. It has to find them somewhere else. The world generally will be hyper-mined, hyper-surveyed, everything that is useable in the earth will be taken, and that has enormous repercussions for all of us.

by Andries Botha

Sep 9, 2006 2:50:00 PM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: Answertext will be available soon.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 2:50:00 PM cite

Anthony Arnove: The question asks how will the world react, but that always begs an important question, which is who in the world are we exactly referring to, how will the leadership, the political leadership of the United States react if we mean by leadership team or the political officials, those with positions of decision making power and authority, how will they react? They will react by going to war to dominate the resources of other countries and to prevent the emergence of political and economic rivals like China and India, and it is the stated foreign policy of the United States and the national security strategy of the United States of America, which was published first in September of 2002 and recently reissued in March of 2006 to preserve the enormous gap that exists between the United States and any potential peer competitor to the United States such as India, such as China, and the Untied States recently went to war in Iraq in order to continue to dominate that region’s energy resources, understanding that the United States actually is far less reliant on those energy resources than its economic and political competitors like China, like India and like countries in the European Union that import 70, 80, in some cases 90% of their energy resources from that region. So, that is how they are answering this question. If we want to see a different answer to that question, it is going to take organizing to challenge the priorities of that political project, which is leading to a situation where we will have more economic conflict, more war, more bloodshed and more distorted development.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 2:50:00 PM cite

Anuradha Koirala:

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 2:50:00 PM cite

Anuradha Mittal: I think the first thing we all have to acknowledge is that the model that the United States is based on is a failed model. It has failed economically, it has failed ecologically, it has failed socially. And once we can understand that, we have to really ask ourselves, “Do we want this model to be exported to the rest of the world?” If it is a model which has created inequities, it has failed for the people of the United States, it has failed the environment of the United States, it is an unfair model which does not work for the rest of the world. Do we really want to follow that so called model of development? Once we’ve done that, the answers are right there.

by Anuradha Mittal

Sep 9, 2006 2:50:00 PM cite

Ashok Gangadean: This question has two parts. I’d like to begin with the second part, because it's well-known and in a way scandalous and often referred to that the population of the United States consumes disproportionality high amount of resources compared with the rest of the world. That’s point one, and to deal with that fact. The other is developing nations with enormous populations like China and India. And the question is, as these awakening giants, the economic giants begin to equally consume resources, how will the world handle this? How will they compensate? How is it sustainable? Those are related questions obviously. And I think the second part of the question about United States and certain western countries consuming a higher amount of resources is going to have to be addressed and readdressed. But for me, this is all part of a deep shift in culture. From an unsustainable cultural model to one that would be culturally sustainable. And it turns again upon the consciousness from which our culture and our living realities come. The global wisdom has taught us that the consciousness we have shapes our reality. And if we are living primarily from an ego-based culture, an egocentric model of me first and of the separation of the ego from nature and from others and other cultures. That model of culture is unsustainable and it really consumes. Always, it consumes itself. And it consumes more disproportionately more to what is really needed for an awakened whole integral human being living in an awakened global consciousness and sharing all of the sacred resources of this planet. In the latter culture of an awakened global culture, we will be able to see a culture of abundance and sharing and there will be ample resources. But there has to be a radical reexamination of our lifestyle and standards of living. How can we have a high level of living in using the resources wisely? That’s the question before us.

by Ashok Gangadean

Sep 9, 2006 2:50:00 PM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: It is true that the 300, approximately 300 million people in the United States constitute the world's minority and yet utilizes over 30 percent of the world's natural resources. This kind of consumption is not sustainable if we were to apply that to the population bases that exist in China and India. So if China and India were to consume resources in proportion to their population base in the same way that the Americans are consuming natural resources, we would all be in big trouble, because there is no way that the world can compensate for this huge resource consumption. It is incumbent therefore on these countries as well as the citizens of the countries to adopt alternative technologies that would not deplete our resources, to start thinking collectively about how we can change our mind-sets and our values so that it would become a value to preserve our resources and to see how we can use alternative forms of renewable energy to meet our needs. But what we must not do is to hurtle blindly on a path of unbridled consumption without regard to the impact that we are having on the depletion of our resources and relegate our future populations to a state of destroying their ability to continue to survive because all of our resources would have been depleted and destroyed. So this is a critical moment in time where we really have to reshape our values, our goals, and our thinking.

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 2:50:00 PM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: In the United States consume resources [inaudible]. Well, the world we have to come up with more strategic solutions to compensate for their needs, and not rely upon the old ways of energy consumption or resource consumption. And that the United States needs to severely change the way in which they consume improportionate to their responsibility, in to their populations. Because we’re talking about this in the subject of the human footprint, so we are looking on our ecological footprint, and everyone needs to do the math, they need to see how their consumption, like what is ecological footprint? How many natural resources, how many acres of natural resources are you using? Go online, get the little website to come up and add in all your diet, your travel, and all this things and see how much you actually consume? It’s true, the average American is like 24, I think 24-acres of natural resources a year. It’s probably even more than that now. An average Indian who uses and Chinese their average use is more on five and seven in their ecological footprint; similar population are bigger, ecological footprint is smaller and yet as we see them industrializing, and using the same technology that we use, that we know is not ecologically sound, like dams. I mean look at China’s great dam, in comparable to their Great Wall in history displacing million of lives and flooding huge ecosystems for power and water and development. That ecological footprint becomes huge, becomes much more bigger, much much bigger. So we need to compensate by using alternatives, by using solar and wind, all that good stuff.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 2:50:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas: This is a question with a complexe dimension concerning the use and the overuse of those ressources. It has to do with the global implementation of mechanisms or pacts or global enforcements of corporation that really want to create those balances. But only if all countries work together we can get these balances. An example is the result of the global reunion where it has been decided many countries should produce ten percent of their energy from renewable energies. Many countries had gone this way, for example Germany. And 90 % of the electrical energy in Costa Rica comes from rivers. Many other countries are also searching for more efficient ways to us e energy. They are seraching for renewable energies that are more compatible to nature. But if not all countries enter into this global concept of solidarity concerning energetic ressources we won’t get those other balances. Those means are difficult to implement because of the global structure of power and national sovereignty above all other global concepts of sovereignty. So where the challenges are we have to search for mecanisms of corporative and solidarian enforcements of the countries in order to milden those balances.

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 2:50:00 PM cite

Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon.

by Bianca Jagger

Sep 9, 2006 2:50:00 PM cite

Bill Joy: We have to industrialize these nations with newer technologies in order to avoid them consuming resources that the United States does. Amory Lovins wrote a book at least a decade ago showing how we could use probably a quarter of the resources we do use today to produce the wealth that we create. And newer technologies have since come along. A factor of ten, a factor of twenty is probably possible. A factor of twenty less wasteful of resources than we are in the United States. Not only is this less consumptive of resources it also saves money so we have to adopt these technologies and we can cause the adoption of these technologies and cause the recycling of these things if we create an economic incentive by focusing on the requirement that things be renewed and reused rather than simply discarded.

by Bill Joy

Sep 9, 2006 2:50:00 PM cite

Bora Cosic: This is one more question coming from America and concerning American politics and American way of the life. If something depends from American community which accepts every day’s wastage of natural resources which affects many poor regions, then its matter of conscience of Americans and not of Indians or Chinese. There it’s not understandable that the Chinese or Indians assail on U.S.A., its Americans that should assail on U.S.A. and its uncultivated politics towards common goods, starting by incensement of there own conscience in those matters.

by Bora Cosic