China Forcing World To Rethink Its Economic Future

Although it is obvious that no society can survive the decline of its environmental support systems, many people are not yet convinced of the need for economic restructuring. But this is changing now that China has eclipsed the United States in the consumption of most basic resources, Brown notes in Plan B 2.0, which was produced with major funding from the Lannan Foundation and the U.N. Population Fund. Among the basic commodities--grain and meat in the food sector, oil and coal in the energy sector, and steel in the industrial sector--China now consumes more than the United States of each of these except for oil. It consumes nearly twice as much meat (67 million tons compared with 39 million tons) and more than twice as much steel (258 million to 104 million tons). These numbers are about total consumption. "But what if China reaches the U.S. consumption level per person?" asks Brown. "If China's economy continues to expand at 8 percent a year, its income per person will reach the current U.S. level in 2031. http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB2/index.htm

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