Saturday, June 25, 2011

Going Green and the Hand Wringing Apologists

There is a lot of brow-beating of people in the developed world about their "guilt". Guilt for a "colonial" past. Guilt about outrageously self-indulgent lifestyles. Guilt about greedily seizing resources and living the underdeveloped world desperate and without.

Well... I was never a colonialist. I don't live an indulgent lifestyle. And I've never hogged resources. Sure, colonialism was rampant 300 years ago. But if you go back 2000 years you find Romans, Chinese, Persians, Indians, etc. as the great colonialists. Why don't be beat Iranians, Chinese, Indians, etc. about the ears for having "empires". My ancestors were running around half naked in the northern fringe woodlands 2000 years ago.

As for using an "unfair" share of resources:

Click to Enlarge

The above graph is from a post on energy by Ed Yardini in his blog Dr. Ed's Blog.

As the graph makes clear, the rising standard of living in China and India (and more generally in southeast Asia) means that resource consumption there has rapidly surpassed the "developed" world. Sure, the per-capita resource use is still low, but the graph shows the trend. In 30-50 years the overwhelming about of resource consumption will be with the billion+ populations of China and India.

Oil consumption is falling in the "developed" world while it is strongly rising in the "undeveloped" world. But all the anti-technology, "green", guilt-ridden propaganda used to make people in the developed world feel guilty is out-dated. It doesn't reflect the world we now live in. But it always takes time for people to throw off out-dated mental shackles.

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