Problem:  America uses much more energy per capita than the world average.

Why We Should Care:  Our disproportionate use of resources is unconscionable in the face of overwhelming poverty and need across much of the globe.  We cannot ethically live in incredible excess when many people around the world struggle to meet their basic physical needs.  Our way of life has become the ideal for developing nations, but should people in these nations adopt our current lifestyle, worldwide resources would be unable to meet the demand.  The American lifestyle is simply unsustainable.

What We Can Do:  Simplify.  Use less, reuse more.  Make conscious decisions about energy usage.  Encourage and support renewable energy sources.  Spread the word!  More Solutions.

In Depth:  The current world population is about six and a half billion people.  The current population of the USA numbers about 304 million people.  That puts us at approximately 4.5% of the total world population - not a very large percentage.  However, we consume the lion's share of the world's energy resources - 26% [1].  Other consumption stats:

- We Americans consume 44% of the world's gasoline [2].

- We consume almost nine times more electricity per person than the average for the rest of the world [1].

- We use about 15 times more energy per person than the typical developing country [1].

In a world where two billion people are without electricity [1], where gasoline costs much of the world almost three times what it does us, where finite energy resources are disappearing at an alarming rate, our excessive consumption is beyond unpractical.  It is just plain wrong. 

We Americans like to fancy ourselves as the shining light on the hill, fighting the good fight, providing an example for the rest of the world to follow.  And an example we are providing indeed - one that will bring about the downfall of global civilization as we know it if the billions of people in developing nations follow it faithfully.

The American way of life is regarded as the ideal in many places around the world, particularly in developing nations.  What happens when the 4.5+ billion people who live in developing nations strive for American lifestyles?  We don't need to speculate - we can look to the current example of China, a large country which is rapidly being industrialized, a country which is becoming increasingly urban and moving from a traditional, agricultural way of life to an American-style, consumerist way of life.

In China, a new coal-fired power plant goes online every 7 to 10 days [3].  Coal, being one of the dirtiest sources of energy, is a particularly worrisome way to begin the "modernization" of a large country such as China.  The pollutants associated with these plants will affect not only China, but the world as a whole - in fact, large clouds of particulate matter from Chinese industry have already been documented crossing the Pacific and polluting our own western regions [3].  The huge amount of sulfur dioxide and CO2 emitted by these power plants will increase rates of global climate change and increase health issues worldwide.

Automobiles, a polluting and resource-intensive part of western culture, are gaining popularity fast in the eastern world, with the number of automobiles in China increasing 332% between 1990 and 2003 [4].  Even with this incredible increase, however, there were (in 2003) still only 12 automobiles per 1000 people in China, compared with 940 autos per 1000 people in the USA [4].  Were rates of automobile ownership in China to equal those of the USA, there would be 900 million automobiles on China's roads, or 40% more than the current global total [4].  Were China's per capita oil consumption to match that of the USA, Chinese oil demand alone would exceed current global oil production by 18% [4].

If these figures seem unreal, it should serve as a reminder that our American lifestyle is unsustainable.  We can easily see that if even a portion of the people in developing countries lived as we do, the planet could simply not support our species.  It is hard to fault these countries for their methodology - after all, they are more or less following the model that we created.  We Americans need to recognize ourselves as originators of this lifestyle and perpetrators of it as the ideal.  Instead of searching for excuses, ways to justify our excess, we need to capitalize upon our place as a world leader and set a new example - one that is based upon a truly sustainable lifestyle.

With great power comes great responsibility.  Our country seems to have forgotten the last half of that truism.  Given our place of  power, it seems clear that we should be honest with ourselves, take a hard look in the mirror, begin to make lifestyle changes, and take a proactive role in helping other countries develop in a more sustainable way with an eye towards the long-term future.  This, however, will not happen without wholesale change at the grassroots level; our citizenry have to lead this charge.  It begins with you, me, and our small circles of influence.  For ideas on how to begin to make this change, check out our Solutions section!

[1] http://www.solarenergy.org/resources/energyfacts.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/gasoline
[3] New York Times, June 11, 2006
[4] Can The Environment Survive China's Craze For Automobiles?, Jimin Zhao, University of Michigan