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this is terrifying

We'd Need Almost Six Planet Earths If Everyone Lived Like This One Country

Darcy Jimenez
Darcy Jimenez
We'd Need Almost Six Planet Earths If Everyone Lived Like This One Country
Some countries' ecological footprints are mind-bogglingly unsustainable.
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We all know some countries consume far more resources, and produce far more waste, than others — but do you know how many planet Earths it would actually take to sustain the lifestyles of the world's most wasteful nations?

Using data from the Global Footprint Network, the visualization below shows how many planet Earths would be needed if the global population lived like selected countries. The figures used were published in 2022, based on 2018 data.

The United Arab Emirates had the biggest ecological footprint overall; it would take 5.8 Earths to support everyone using the same resources and producing the same amount of waste.

If the whole planet lived like Americans, we'd need 4.9 Earths, while South Korea's lifestyle would require 3.9.

At the other end of the list is India, whose resource use and waste would require 0.7 Earths if adopted by the global population.

Click image to enlarge

how many earths needed for different country lifestyles

Via Visual Capitalist.

Comments

  1. John Santhoff 2 days ago

    And according to the book "The Population Bomb" from the late 1960's hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death by the 1980's because the planet was incapable of growing enough food to feed and sustain the worlds population. And according to the book "An Inconvenient Truth" New Orleans, Florida and other parts of the world are going to sink into the oceans by 2010. Why should we believe another gloom and doom prophecy? Believe in mankind's ability to overcome adversity and innovate new solutions. The world is not a Zero-Sum-Game.

    1. Unknown 2 days ago

      Well, the book did not claim that year 2010 anything would "sink" into ocean. There aren't that many places that sink to anything. Sea levels rise, but landmass doesn't sink.

      The book predicts that because of global warming sea levels rise causing flooding and other problems to places that are already close to current sea levels.

      Also the book was published in 2006, I doubt they would say Florida would be under the sea in 4 years. I don't know what makes you say something like that.

    2. Steve Vink (Batvink) 2 days ago

      @john you're right, it's not a zero-sum game, it's far worse. The US with it's 333M+ population is consuming the equivalent of a population 1.6 billion when using the world's resources as a baseline. People usually refer to Zero Sum when trying to move the dial towards a positive game outcome, this has taken it into negative territory.

    3. Steven 2 days ago

      Your defensiveness has blinded you to what they're saying. They're not making predictions about 10, 20, or 50 years down the line. They're saying, based on the availability of raw materials, agricultural output, etc *right now* and how much the average person from a given country consumes *right now*, this is what it would take if everyone behaved that way.

  2. Jeremy Walker 3 days ago

    How can you possibly be proud of the fact that we take far more than our fair share?

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