Thursday, October 11, 2007

Limits of Ideality

To reach a life expectancy of 100, I project that per capita GDP would need to be about $330,000. To achieve maximum happiness, the minimum is about $430,000. The corresponding consumption would be around 280 percent and 330 percent of the maximum footprint in 2003, respectively.

The projected consumption values correspond to 33 and 40 global hectares of bio-productive land per person. There are a maximum of 11.2 billion global hectares available if we stay within natural limits, limiting the Earth’s population to between roughly 280 and 340 million people living at a naturally sustainable level. For larger populations, either lifestyle will suffer for a large numbers of people or we will need to secure more resources.

1 comment:

Bradley Jarvis said...

These numbers should actually be 34 and 42 global hectares, and 327 and 268 million people.