Ramez Naam Quotes

For every person in the world to reach the present U.S. level of consumption with existing technology would require four more planet earths.

We're not going to persuade people in the developing world to go without, but neither can we afford a planet on which everyone lives like an American. Billions more people living in suburbs and driving SUVs to shopping malls is a recipe for planetary suicide. We can't even afford to continue that way of life ourselves.

Does this planet have enough resources so seven or eight billion can have the same level of consumption and waste that today is seen in rich societies? It is this level of hyper-consumption that is harming our planet.

The fact is that seven per cent of the global population emits 50 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, and the proportions are the same for the use of energy and raw materials, meat, wood, etc. Simply put, an infinitesimal minority consumes the most and imposes damage on the overwhelming majority, while asking it to change.

The G8 nations, together with the five major emerging economies of China, India, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, use almost three-quarters of the Earth's biocapacity - the capacity of the world's ecosystems to produce natural resources and to reduce harmful substances.

The combination of population growth and the growth in consumption is a danger that we are not prepared for and something we will need global co-operation on.

Consumption may be regarded as negative production.

America in particular imposes an horrendous burden on the world. We have this wonderful standard of living but it comes at enormous cost.

The United States has consumed in the last 50 years more natural resources than the rest of the entire human race for all of history.

If the rest of the world aspires to our way of life ... we'll bury ourselves in waste.

People are getting richer all over the world and they are going to want to live the way Americans live. And that is going to place a big strain on our environment and will be a great challenge.

Since the mid-1970s, people have been consuming more resources than the planet’s natural capital can replenish.

Economic growth tends to require the taking of resources from the Earth. So something has to change on a debt-based economy.

I had a very clear vision. If Indians start consuming power like the Americans, the world will run out of resources. Either you stop India from developing, or you find some alternate solution.

Any child born into the hugely consumptionist way of life so common in the industrial world will have an impact that is, on average, many times more destructive than that of a child born in the developing world.

The strong evidence is that we're running out of space. We're collectively affecting the world's climate. This is due to the still-growing human population and our increase in consumption.

Unfortunately, our affluent society has also been an effluent society.

Economic development is what's going to make mountaintop removal palatable.

I think the greatest challenge in environmentalism and the most rewarding challenge is trying to figure out how humans can meet their needs while protecting the environment.

This is suicidal... our home is the biosphere. That's a very thin layer of air, water and land where all life exists. It's fixed, it can't grow, and yet we cling to this idea that the economy can grow forever. And it must. Well, it can't.

We really need to kick the carbon habit and stop making our energy from burning things. Climate change is also really important. You can wreck one rainforest then move, drain one area of resources and move onto another, but climate change is global.

The situation the Earth is in today has been created by unmindful production and unmindful consumption. We consume to forget our worries and our anxieties. Tranquilising ourselves with over-consumption is not the way.

The world is using up its natural resources at an alarming rate, and this has caused a permanent shift in their value. We all need to adjust our behavior to this new environment. It would help if we did it quickly.

If we have any hope of finding ways for seven billion people to live well on planet with finite resources, we have to learn to use our resources efficiently. Plastic bags are neither efficient nor environmentally friendly.

This whole idea that we address environmental issues by not doing stuff just doesn't work.