Big Plans, Small Planet

TomPaine.com contributor Patrick Doherty ties together separate speeches by two American officials - Secretary John Snow on reducing the U.S. trade deficit with China, and Gen. James Jones on NATO's near-future role providing "industrial security" - to show how both men only weakly grasp the implications of the inexorable and excruciating resource crunch which is occuring as more inhabitants of this planet - many of whom are Chinese - start to consume at Western or even American levels:

At the current rate of consumption, we would need at least 2.66 earths to provide all the world's population the level of consumption those 1.5 billion currently enjoy (that rises to five earths if we want to let everyone enjoy an American lifestyle). Even if we limit ourselves to Chinese consumption, if the Chinese consumed as much gasoline as an American, per capita, China alone would account for 118 percent of oil production.