Monday, 05 April 2004

The Producers. A fellow expat provides a link to a pop quiz, which claims to measure how many Earths we'd need if everyone consumed as many resources as you do. (You greedy scoundrel.) This problem with this claim is that it relies on a blatantly misleading premise, which you'll only learn by closely reading the site's FAQ:

Footprint results are expressed in global acres (or global hectares in metric measurement). Each of those acres (hectares) corresponds to one acre (hectare) of biologically productive space with world-average productivity. [Emphasis added]

The quiz is calculating what would happen if we increased the world's average consumption level to match yours—while holding the world's average production level at its current rate, which is well below yours. The implication is that the world's "biologically productive space" is working at its peak efficiency—that there is absolutely nothing we could do anywhere in the world to increase crop yields, raise energy output, or improve the productivity of the average human being. The earth is red-lined at its maximum capacity, and we can't even squeeze out one more lousy ear of corn; our only option is to conserve, conserve, conserve, or else start preparing for the coming Malthusian collapse. No more wealth can be generated.

To put this claim in its proper perspective, I'd like to offer an alternate quiz: This one holds worldwide consumption at today's levels, and measures what would happen if we raised or lowered per capita production. In other words, the quiz will sneakily imply the problem is not that some people are consuming more than their "fair share" of resources—instead, it will insinuate that certain tree-hugging deadbeat socialists are not pulling their weight on the global production scale. Get with the program, slackers! Let's see how you do on this quiz:

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 1:25 pm. comments.