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All You Can Eat Economy |
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Compiled by GayToday Worldwatch Institute "We're finding more and more evidence that the developed world's consumption-filled lifestyle choices are often as unhealthy for ourselves as for the planet we inhabit," said Worldwatch researcher and Vital Signs Project Director, Michael Renner. "And while much of the world remains too poor to afford such choices, the emerging middle classes in developing nations are following the same damaging patterns pioneered in the developed world: meat and coffee consumption is on the rise, as is obesity and over half of the world smokers are now in developing nations." This 10th anniversary edition of Vital Signs-made possible with the support of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the W. Alton Jones Foundation-illustrates how an economy geared only towards meeting insatiable consumer demand can adversely affect human, environmental, and economic health. A greater reliance on cars not only heats up the planet but also leads to more sedentary lifestyles-a major cause of obesity. The development of lucrative drugs to treat diseases of the First World is keeping money away from critical research on vaccines and medications aimed at diseases like malaria that afflict far larger portions of the world population. Industrial farming practices have created one of the most gruesome crossovers of disease from animals to humans, Bovine or 'Mad Cow' disease. "The challenge of this new century is to extend the economic progress of the last 50 years, while halting the ecological decline -- a sick planet will, sooner or later, lead to a faltering economy," said Executive Director of UNEP, Klaus Toepfer. "The question is whether humanity will forge a healthier, sustainable future or risk the downward spiral as a result of not understanding the ecological and economic threshold the world is now on. I hope that the statistical snapshot contained in Vital Signs 2001 will help fill this information gap." In a year when oil prices hit a 15-year high, car production also peaked. The world's fleet of passenger vehicles reached 532 million in 2000. At the same time, average fuel economy remained stagnant at mid-1980's levels. Just before the Bush Administration effectively pulled out of the Kyoto protocol, Americans were driving their cars further than ever before. Total U.S. carbon emissions were 13 percent higher than they were in 1990. While technological innovation soars, 90 percent of commercial energy use worldwide continues to come from fossil fuels. Alternative energy sources such as wind still only account for one percent of the world total, reports Vital Signs 2001.
Our appetite for meat has also been soaring. The number of four-footed livestock on earth at any given moment has increased 60 percent since 1961, and the number of chickens, ducks and other fowl, has quadrupled, from 4.2 billion to 15.7 billion. Feedlot production-the fastest growing method for raising livestock-has emerged as a major threat to soil, air and water quality. In the U.S., livestock produce 130 times more manure than humans do. Though concentrated in North America and Europe, feedlots are also popping up near urban centers in Brazil, China, India, the Philippines and elsewhere in the developing world. The demand for more meat has also spurred the feeding of antibiotics to farm animals, a practice which has been increasingly implicated in reducing the effectiveness of these drugs in humans. Drug resistance is rising across a wide range of bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi that are responsible for diseases from malaria to AIDS. At least half of all antibiotics used in human medicine are prescribed unnecessarily, creating greater opportunities for the survival and spread of resistant bacteria. Pharmaceuticals are one of the most profitable and fastest-growing industries in the world, increasing from $132 billion in 1983 to $337 billion today. But big pharmaceutical companies have tended to neglect the health of large portions of humanity. All of the world's top selling drugs are designed to treat First World conditions including heart disease, high blood pressure, indigestion and obesity. A survey of 1,233 drugs that reached market between 1975 and 1997 found that only 13 were approved specifically for tropical diseases. In the face of all these changes, Vital Signs 2001 points to some encouraging mass movements that may become major forces in reshaping today's consumerist lifestyles:
"The findings from Vital Signs 2001 show that when consumers demand it, environmentally friendly and socially responsible methods of production can be achieved, Renner said. "The power of consumer choice cannot be underestimated; for good or for bad it can sicken or save our planet." A Worldwide Perspective on Consumption:
Food
Energy and transport
Health
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We're eating more meat, drinking more coffee, popping more pills, driving
further and getting fatter. Around the world we are consuming more than
ever before: but more than one billion people still don't have access
to safe water; natural disasters are taking a worsening toll; and we
have yet to vanquish some of the world's biggest killers-diarrhea, malaria
and AIDS-reports a new publication by the Worldwatch Institute,
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