Quote:
Originally Posted by DieselAddict
If everyone in China and India had a car, we would be out of oil real soon. Population will always grow as much as it can until the current resources are maxed out. 100 years ago we had 1.6 billion people because there were too many deaths due to lack of technology. Now with climate change emerging as a serious threat (which is already causing flooding, droughts, heat waves and other problems), I wouldn't be surprised to see population growth coming to a standstill and maybe even going negative in the next 100 years. I've read some reports that predict that the population will level off around 9 billion.
|
I probably agree with most of that, so what's the solution? Are we going to try to prevent everyone in China and India from getting a car (and electrical power and clean water), that wouldn't work even if it was ethical. The best we can do is start selling them the latest/most efficient technology available to minimize the energy/environmental impact of their industrialization. It is quite likely they will "leapfrog" our technology over the next couple of decades anyway.