6,000,000,000 Consumption Machines - environmental aspects of population growth

As Earth's human population surges to new records, what will be the impacts on natural systems?

SOMETIME on October 12, 1999 -- most likely in China or India, according to demographic probabilities -- the Earth's six billionth human will be born.

As a consumer of water and food, forest products and clean air, animals and the ocean's bounty, this newborn will make but a tiny dent on natural resources during its sojourn on the planet. But put Baby Six Billion together with all the other human consumption machines already here, and alarm bells go off.

Can Earth's natural resources and ecological systems withstand the additive impact of this latest member of our species? Worse yet, what will happen in the year 2025, when Baby Eight Billion is projected to be born?

If this latest addition to the human family arrives in a developed country -- say, the United States -- he or she will automatically be in the top 20 percent of the human race, at least in terms of good housing, potable water, proper sanitation, a high school or college education, sound medical care, jobs, disposable income and leisure time. But Baby Six Billion will also be part of an elite that consumes in record numbers. In all, 270 million Americans use up nearly 10 billion metric tons of materials a year, 30 percent of the planet's total. And the world's one billion richest people -- which also include Europeans and Japanese, among others -- consume 80 percent of the Earth's resources.

If, on the other hand, Baby Six Billion is indeed born in the Third World, where three-quarters of humanity is already concentrated, he or she stands a good chance of being thrown into misery and deprivation. One-third of Earth's people -- two billion of them -- already subsist on just $2 a day or less. Half of all people on Earth have improper sanitation facilities. A quarter have no access to clean water. A third live in substandard housing, many in tin-roofed shacks with dirt floors. A sixth will never learn to read, and 30 percent who enter the global workforce will never get adequate job opportunities. The other five billion people on Earth make do with just 20 percent of the planet's resources.

Rising expectations and the inevitable quest for improved living conditions in the Third World are likely to exacerbate this assault on resources. The average American consumes 37 metric tons of fuels, metals, minerals, food and forest products each year. By contrast, the average Indian consumes less than one metric ton. According to the United Nations, if the entire population of the Earth were to have the same level of consumption as the average American or West European, it would take three Planet Earths to supply the necessary resources.

Regardless of where Baby Six Billion is born, he or she will contribute to the relentless collective consumption that continues to devour global resources at rates most experts say are nonsustainable. And in the process, the human newcomer -- along with his 5,999,999,999 companions -- will produce enormous quantities of waste.

Whether Earth has the ability to absorb more people and provide for their ever-growing needs is not a closed question. Some technocrats have argued that the Earth's greatest resource is the innate capacity of human beings to invent or engineer their way out of population and resource crises. If that is so, however, human ingenuity is not keeping pace with human consumption as measured in the degradation of virtually every natural system -- from the chilly North Atlantic with its vital fisheries to the steamy rain forests of Amazonia with their incomparable array of plants and animals.

When all is said and done, human activities caused by population growth and consumption patterns are taking a heavy toll on our planet's life-support systems -- and on Earth's other species, which are disappearing at record rates as human numbers rise. The following report looks at the collective effect of six billion consumption machines on six aspects of the natural world. It is a grim picture, with only flashes of hope.

Don Hinrichsen is an environmental reporter who specializes in covering the developing world. For the last 12 years, he has also been a consultant on population for the United Nations system, principally the UN Population Fund. His analysis is based on an in-depth review of available sources, including government agencies, environmental groups, think tanks, international entities and individual experts. For information on the National Wildlife Federation's population efforts, see its web site: www.nwf.org/international/pop.

WATER

Squandering the Planet's Lifeblood

WATER IS THE LIQUID of life. Without it, the blue planet would be a dead and barren wasteland. Fresh water is also the most finite of Earth's resources. There is no more water on Earth now than there was 2,000 years ago when the human population was less than 3 percent of its current size. But population growth and rising use have put the squeeze on available resources.