Cross-posted at MotherTalkers.
Today I was accused of wanting to bear John Edwards' children, much to my astonishment. I'm not much in the mood to bear anybody's children these days, as I wrangle my busy toddler and simultaneously try to complete a coherent thought about the state of politics in the U.S. But the accusation that I loved John Edwards (PeeWee Herman style "Why don't you marry him?! Huh Huh!", along with today's NYT Op-Ed, made me remember a claim I made years ago. I love Jared Diamond, not to the point of bearing his children, but enough to read his books and opinions with groupie-like reverence. That guy is smart, and I don't know if I'm worthy enough to even drink a beer with him, never mind getting relaxed enough for sex.
Jared Diamond's piece is called What’s Your Consumption Factor? It's short, and he starts by talking about the number 32, comparing the relative consumption rate of developed countries (i.e. U.S., Europe, Australia, Japan) to developing countries.
The estimated one billion people who live in developed countries have a relative per capita consumption rate of 32. Most of the world’s other 5.5 billion people constitute the developing world, with relative per capita consumption rates below 32, mostly down toward 1.
This sounds grim, and it reinforces all of our MT talk of saving, recycling, and retraining ourselves to reduce consumption. But toward the end, he says something hopeful and equally reinforcing.
Real sacrifice wouldn’t be required, however, because living standards are not tightly coupled to consumption rates. Much American consumption is wasteful and contributes little or nothing to quality of life. For example, per capita oil consumption in Western Europe is about half of ours, yet Western Europe’s standard of living is higher by any reasonable criterion, including life expectancy, health, infant mortality, access to medical care, financial security after retirement, vacation time, quality of public schools and support for the arts. Ask yourself whether Americans’ wasteful use of gasoline contributes positively to any of those measures.
It seems that he's basically saying that the developed world (listen up, U.S.A.) just has a bunch of bad habits. He's reiterating Gore's message that we just need political will, since all the technology is there or close to getting there. Regardless of which Democratic president we get (although I do, in fact, prefer Edwards!), what we really need is an active, interested population. Our next leader needs to inspire people to get moving or else nothing will change, and I'm convinced that the netroots (bottom-up) can make sure this happens, just by keeping everything as transparent as it has.