If Every Chinese Owned a Two-Car Garage
Ten years ago a U.S. green activist named Lester Brown, shocked the communist leaders in China, when he released a controversial study entitled Who Will Feed China? In it he predicted that the loss farmland due to rampant industrialization would make it increasingly difficult for China to feed itself.
China was then on the cusp of an extraordinary economic takeoff, just beginning to lift itself out of a thousand years of abject poverty, and along comes this foreign devil telling everyone that if China continued along this course it would, to quote one newspaper headline, “starve the world.”
The last thing China’s rulers wanted at that time was for some foreigner, worse some American, suggesting that their people could not aspire to an American standard of living. Brown was seen as a kind of modern imperialist, wanting to hold China back from its rightful place in the world.
Ten years later and China, if anything, has developed an even greater appetite for the world’s resources. Among the five basic food, energy and industrial commodities -- grain, meat, oil, steel and coal -- China already consumes more of everything than the United States, except oil. In terms of consumer goods, television sets, mobile phones, there is no contest except in automobiles.
Brown outlines these developments in two new studies released earlier this year by his Earth Policy Institute. The first report details how China is replacing the U.S. as the world’s leading consumer. The second and even more provocative report postulates what would happen to the world if China’s 1.5 billion people achieved an American style of living. The details are here and here.
That China might achieve an American level of consumption is not far fetched. Brown calculates that if China’s economy continues to grow at a rate of 8 percent a year (present expansion more like 9.5), it will reach today’s US level by 2031. If one uses a more conservative figure of merely 6 percent growth, China would achieve parity in 2040, He calculates current per capita income at $5,300 in China and $38,000 in the US.
What would that mean? Just to use two examples: If Chinese used petroleum products at the same rate as Americans do now, by 2031 China would need 99 million barrels of oil a day, nearly five times America’s current consumption and more than the 79 million barrels produced per day in the entire world, he calculates.
And what about cars? If automobile ownership reached American levels (three cars for every four people), China would have a fleet of 1.1 billion cars. That’s more than the world’s total car “population” of about 795 million vehicles. The paving over of land for highways and parking lots for such a fleet would approach that now planted in rice.
Little wonder that China’s recent diplomacy has been aimed primarily at securing needed resources. A prime example was China’s President Hu Jintao’s 12-day visit to Latin America last November, where he signed long-term contracts for commodities ranging from agricultural products to minerals.
China’s rulers are not oblivious to the consequences of their headlong rush towards modernization. Beijing tried to slow the growth of the economy in several ways this past year, which was manifested in slower automobile sales. And it is studying a variety of new taxes, including “carbon taxes,” which would constrain the growth in energy consumption.
Strangely, considering their reaction to Brown’s earlier report, Beijing has taken his new findings in stride. In fact, Brown was recently awarded an honorary professorship by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the mainland’s top scientific research institute. In Chinese terms he has been “rehabilitated.”
“They’ve been sobered by the way things are unfolding,” Brown said. “They’ve begun to realize how big their environmental problems are and can be.” As an example, he points to coal consumption. If China’s coal burning in China were to reach the American rate of two tons or person, China’s carbon emissions would rival those of the entire world today.
“Much of what we predicted in the earlier report has turned out to be true. We predicted a decline in grain production, and, lo, it peaked in 1998 at 392 million tons then fell sharply.” China has taken steps to boost farm production and the figure has begun to climb again. “But I doubt they will ever see 392 million tons again.”
Did the Chinese take away his honorary professorship after reading the latest reports? “No,” he laughed. “I just got it in the mail the other week.”
China was then on the cusp of an extraordinary economic takeoff, just beginning to lift itself out of a thousand years of abject poverty, and along comes this foreign devil telling everyone that if China continued along this course it would, to quote one newspaper headline, “starve the world.”
The last thing China’s rulers wanted at that time was for some foreigner, worse some American, suggesting that their people could not aspire to an American standard of living. Brown was seen as a kind of modern imperialist, wanting to hold China back from its rightful place in the world.
Ten years later and China, if anything, has developed an even greater appetite for the world’s resources. Among the five basic food, energy and industrial commodities -- grain, meat, oil, steel and coal -- China already consumes more of everything than the United States, except oil. In terms of consumer goods, television sets, mobile phones, there is no contest except in automobiles.
Brown outlines these developments in two new studies released earlier this year by his Earth Policy Institute. The first report details how China is replacing the U.S. as the world’s leading consumer. The second and even more provocative report postulates what would happen to the world if China’s 1.5 billion people achieved an American style of living. The details are here and here.
That China might achieve an American level of consumption is not far fetched. Brown calculates that if China’s economy continues to grow at a rate of 8 percent a year (present expansion more like 9.5), it will reach today’s US level by 2031. If one uses a more conservative figure of merely 6 percent growth, China would achieve parity in 2040, He calculates current per capita income at $5,300 in China and $38,000 in the US.
What would that mean? Just to use two examples: If Chinese used petroleum products at the same rate as Americans do now, by 2031 China would need 99 million barrels of oil a day, nearly five times America’s current consumption and more than the 79 million barrels produced per day in the entire world, he calculates.
And what about cars? If automobile ownership reached American levels (three cars for every four people), China would have a fleet of 1.1 billion cars. That’s more than the world’s total car “population” of about 795 million vehicles. The paving over of land for highways and parking lots for such a fleet would approach that now planted in rice.
Little wonder that China’s recent diplomacy has been aimed primarily at securing needed resources. A prime example was China’s President Hu Jintao’s 12-day visit to Latin America last November, where he signed long-term contracts for commodities ranging from agricultural products to minerals.
China’s rulers are not oblivious to the consequences of their headlong rush towards modernization. Beijing tried to slow the growth of the economy in several ways this past year, which was manifested in slower automobile sales. And it is studying a variety of new taxes, including “carbon taxes,” which would constrain the growth in energy consumption.
Strangely, considering their reaction to Brown’s earlier report, Beijing has taken his new findings in stride. In fact, Brown was recently awarded an honorary professorship by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the mainland’s top scientific research institute. In Chinese terms he has been “rehabilitated.”
“They’ve been sobered by the way things are unfolding,” Brown said. “They’ve begun to realize how big their environmental problems are and can be.” As an example, he points to coal consumption. If China’s coal burning in China were to reach the American rate of two tons or person, China’s carbon emissions would rival those of the entire world today.
“Much of what we predicted in the earlier report has turned out to be true. We predicted a decline in grain production, and, lo, it peaked in 1998 at 392 million tons then fell sharply.” China has taken steps to boost farm production and the figure has begun to climb again. “But I doubt they will ever see 392 million tons again.”
Did the Chinese take away his honorary professorship after reading the latest reports? “No,” he laughed. “I just got it in the mail the other week.”
posted by Todd Crowell at 11:04 AM
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