Jared Diamond on the Consumption Factor

Jared M. Diamond, professor at UCLA and author of the best sellers Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse, asks in a January 2 Op-Ed piece for the New York Times, "What's Your Consumption Factor?"

He writes, "The average rates at which people consume resources like oil and metals, and produce wastes like plastics and greenhouse gases, are about 32 times higher in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia than they are in the developing world. That factor of 32 has big consequences."

This level of consumption cannot be maintained, he writes, as our world resources dwindle and as people in developing countries strive to adopt our high-consumption lifestyle. What is the answer?

"Willingly or not, we shall soon have lower consumption rates, because our present rates are unsustainable. Real sacrifice wouldn’t be required, however, because living standards are not tightly coupled to consumption rates. Much American consumption is wasteful and contributes little or nothing to quality of life."

Read the entire editorial.