I’ve been thinking about the world’s problems and how they’re directly related to resource and externality limits and inequity because we live on a finite planet. Specifically, whether there are limits to the stuff we can take from nature or a limit to how much we can pollute. And if there are limits, how do we distribute them fairly?
If 100 gallons of water flow from a river per day, and each person needs 1 gallon a day to survive, there would be a problem if more than 100 people lived near the river. It would also be unfair if someone in a village of 100 consumed 5 gallons. On top of that, we cannot forget to add biodiversity into our example, like if there are fish that depend on water in the river or deer that also need water to drink—things we don’t usually take into account.
This concept of a sustainable resource limit applies to nearly everything in our physical world: land, wood, sand, minerals, metals, wildlife, pet trade species, fish stocks, plants, succulents, etc. The fundamental concept is simple. If we remove at a rate faster than what is regenerated, eventually the resource will run out. But sometimes it is not that simple; the limit may be indirect due to other resource limits. Take our river example from above. Let’s pretend a village depends on an aquatic vegetable that requires 50 gallons of water flow per day. Then the limit for water consumption is not 100 gallons per day, but 50.
Keep in mind that not all of these resources have limits that have been surpassed or will be reached until sometime in the future. It may also be impossible to determine a “hard” limit in many cases.
If there are limits to resource consumption, then it is only right that we stay underneath those limits. This brings up the issue: how do we distribute a resource within its limit? Not everyone wants the same products. But there are certain resources in which everyone needs in order to live a decent life. It would seem reasonable that at the very least, these resources should be allocated, within their limits, in a way that ensures a decent life for everyone.
Today, many communities and wildlife suffer from lack of water. Seven states, tribes, and parts of Mexico rely on the Colorado River, which has been significantly impacted by recent drought. Unfortunately, the states have been in disagreement on how to cut and divide the water fairly, which is resulting in further depletion of water resources.
Another example is the amount of land required to produce meat for certain diets. If the world were to adopt the diet of the average American, 138% of the world’s habitable land would need to be converted for agriculture. That is over 100%, which is obviously impossible. Compare that to the average Indian diet which would require 22% of the world’s habitable land.
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Similarly, there are limits to negative externalities such as pollution—greenhouse gases, plastic, etc. In other words, there is a maximum amount of pollution that can be released into the environment before it begins to significantly impact an ecosystem from functioning the way it should.
Another category of negative externalities are human activities and the effect of anthropogenic objects in an environment. Examples include driving cars, rapid urbanization, and fences and walls, which have significant impacts on global biodiversity.
Let’s first focus on greenhouse gases. Suppose the total sustainable global greenhouse gas emissions is 5 billion tons a year instead of the current 40 billion tons that is emitted. Divide the 5 billion by the number of people on the planet (8 billion) to get 0.63 tons. Then, it would only be equally fair if everyone was allowed to emit 0.63 tons instead of the 16 tons that the average American emits (or several thousand tons for many top 0.1 percenters).
Globally, we produce about 80 billion lbs of beef at a cost of 220 billion lbs of methane per year. Suppose to get to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, we need to decrease emissions by 90% to 22 billion lbs of methane/year or 8 billion lbs of beef respectively. Divided equally between the global population of 8 billion, we get 1 lb of beef per person. Compare this to the average amount of beef eaten by an American in a year: 55 lbs. Animal ethics aside, we have to ask: is this fair? Let’s look at this the other way around. If everyone in the world were to eat the same amount of beef as the average American, then the total amount of methane emitted from cattle per year would be 1.2 trillion lbs of methane. That is over 5 times what is emitted from cows today.
If everyone in the world flew a distance from New York to San Francisco in a year (roughly a third of a ton), that would produce 3 billion tons of co2 or almost three times as much as what global aviation produces currently.
The most publicized pollution limit issue that we are facing today is climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions. But aside from carbon emissions, there are many other types of pollution which have their own limits that we don’t really address like plastic pollution, PFAS compounds (forever chemicals), water, light, sound, aircraft contrails, space debris, and many more. Many of these we barely understand, such as the effects of microplastic accumulating on the ocean floor or electromagnetic radiation on certain species.
In regards to pollution, there are two important equity issues. First is how much each person should be allowed to pollute within a sustainable limit. Similar to resources, if there is a limit to the amount of pollution we can emit globally, then it is only right if we, as a total population, emit an amount that is equal or under that level. Does this mean it would be unfair for someone to emit more than their equal share? And second, how do we address inequity in regards to the existing (and future) people, plants, or animals that suffer disproportionately from the negative effects of exceeding pollution limits?
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These are ideas we should be discussing today because they are a direct cause of the majority of the world’s most pressing problems from the ecological (climate change, habitat degradation, biodiversity loss) to the social (wealth inequality, social unrest, conflicts). Here are some questions we should be asking:
- How do we determine what externalities need to be controlled or limited? For example, global climate change, but what about sensory pollution (light and sound)?
- What is the sustainable limit? Specifically, what is an acceptable amount taken from nature? Or an acceptable amount of pollution released into the environment? The ideal level may not be at its limit.
- How do we fairly distribute a resource or externality within its limit? What level of inequality is acceptable?
- What rights do plants, fungi, and animals have within the context of these issues?
- How can we rebuild society to better manage these sustainable limit issues over the long run? For instance, prevent global climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions in the first place? What policies or systems do we need to implement?
Our global economy is structured on the unlimited pursuit of producing goods and services for our own pleasure. But that is a dangerously misguided way of reality. We live in a finite world in which resources are limited, and each of our activities has consequences of their own. This is not saying that we need to eliminate all our belongings and return to a primitive state of living, but rather that we need to reexamine and transition our society within the context of finite resources and limits if we want to preserve life on this planet.
Sources
https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959378016302370
https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production
https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/How-much-beef-is-consumed-per-person-in-the-US
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