The Hindu Business Line : We are using resources 21 per cent faster than Earth can renew them

LAST year the world grew at a `scorching rate' of 5 per cent, steel production crossed the billion-tonne mark, and global grain harvest rose by 8 per cent to over 2 billion tonnes. But the year was the fourth warmest year ever recorded, even as 852 million went hungry each day - a number equal to the combined populations of North America, Japan and Europe. With these and more facts brims Vital Signs 2005 of the Worldwatch Institute (www.worldwatch.org), a book on "the trends that are shaping our future".

Part one, titled `key indicators' begins with grain harvest and hunger, where Brian Halweil tells us that harvest per person now stands at 322 kg. Corn has surpassed rice and wheat because "growing demand for meat encourages farmers to plant corn as a feedgrain". It may sound paradoxical that China, the world's largest wheat producer, was also the largest wheat importer, "despite a 6 per cent increase in national harvest".

The UN had to announce the year 2004 as the international year of rice because demand was outpacing production for the fourth consecutive year. "Rice provides 20 per cent of the world's dietary energy supply in terms of calories consumed directly, while wheat supplies 19 per cent and corn 5 per cent." Rice price rose, to obey the laws of economics; and stocks dipped by 17 per cent, "to their lowest level since 1984."

On hunger, if you're hungry for facts, the book records, "Hunger now kills more than 5 million children each year — roughly one child every five seconds."

Danielle Nierenberg writes, in the discussion on meat production, that in the developing countries average consumption is 30 kg per annum. Add 10 kg, for the statistic about industrial nations and by 2020 the average may ascend to 90 kg, "the equivalent of a side of beef, 50 chickens, and one pig." In pork, the difference between the rich and poor countries is wide: 12.3 kg and 30 kg.

On the flip side are the newer methods of production. Called `industrial animal agriculture' or `factory farming', these contribute more than half of world's needs, but are "inhumane, and potentially hazardous", opines the piece. These farms gorge inputs. "Producing 8 ounces of beef requires 25,000 litres of water. A calorie of beef takes 33 per cent more fossil fuel to produce than a calorie of energy from potatoes would. And 95 per cent of the world's soybean harvest is consumed by animals."

On fish, an alarming fact that marine scientists estimated in 2004 was: "That industrial fleets have fished out at least 90 per cent of all large ocean predators — tuna, marlin, swordfish, sharks, cod, halibut, skates, and flounder — in just the past 50 years."

It will be one more week before fuel prices are hiked, or so we're assured. Blame it on demand that surged by 3.4 per cent last year, "the fastest rate of increase in 16 years," as Chiristopher Flavin notes. This year, it could slow to the normal 2 per cent. China has been gobbling, among other things, oil too; 11 per cent more in 2004, making it the world's number two user at 6.6 million barrels per day. There, "31 provinces were subject to power rationing in 2004, pushing many factory owners to install diesel generators and driving up oil demand."

If you hope that nuclear power will catch up, Nicholas Lenssen sobers you up. Not many new reactors are being built. And many are getting phased out too. India meets only 3.3 per cent of electricity needs through nuclear power that stands at around 4,000 megawatts. China has ambitious plans of touching 36,000 megawatts by 2020; "even then, however, nuclear would only represent 4 per cent of China's total generating capacity," forecasts the study. There seems to be promise on the solar power front, with the production of photovoltaic (PV) cells jumping 58 per cent in 2004.

A tiny drop still, because solar power meets less than 1 per cent of global electricity demand, points out Janet L. Sawin. The good news is that "module costs have dropped from about $30 per watt in 1975 to close to $3 per watt." Capacity of solar thermal collectors is currently at 150 million square metres; the energy equivalent "far exceeds that of global wind and solar power combined."

Move on to GWP or gross world product that touched $55 trillion, or a per capita of $8,587. Erik Assadourian looks at the costs. "Humanity is using resources 21 per cent faster than Earth can renew them." Even this estimate is conservative, says Erik, because it does not include the needs of other species. "On average, each person uses the resources of 2.2 `global hectares' of productive land," though only 1.8 such hectares are available per capita. A progressive thought from China is that of `Green GDP' — subtracting resource depletion and pollution costs from GDP.

Foreign Direct Investments are increasingly flowing to services, with almost a two-third share; share of manufacturing dropped from 42 to 34 per cent in 2004. "Whether a country benefits from FDI depends largely on the regulatory environment in the host country," reminds the book. "Without effective policies, FDI can push local enterprises out of business or stimulate an inequitable distribution of services."

While China's appetite for steel is well known, Gary Gardner gives an instance of how the effect is felt elsewhere too. "In November 2004, the Nissan Motor Company had to close three assembly plants in Japan for five days because of lack of steel."

Thankfully, steel is one of the most extensively recycled materials. "In 2003, the US steel industry recycled more steel from cars than it used to produce new ones giving a recycling rate of 103 per cent."

An interesting break-up is about what goes into a typical US passenger car: "824 kg of steel, 149 kg of iron, 126 kg of aluminium, and 116 kg of plastics and composites." More on cars, "In 1950, Americans drove some 588 billion km in 40 million cars — almost 14,600 km per car." Now, the average distance is 19,000 km. Total distance adds up to 4,281 billion km, which is "the equivalent to 14,038 roundtrips from Earth to the sun." A pinching number for the US is that driving all these vehicles drained 8.3 million barrels per day. India is in the `5 million vehicles or more' club.

Healthily, bicycle production has recovered, touching 104 million. "Four of the top five producers are now Asian - China, India, Taiwan, and Japan." Cycles notch up only 0.4 per cent as `share of trips to work' in the US, but in many prospering Asian countries, the share is better. A study in Senegal found that nurses using bikes were 58 per cent quicker in their rounds than those who walked, and they saved 40 cents per trip over taking a taxi! As if to frighten you of cycles, a deadly number is that the US cyclists are 12 times more likely than people in cars to die en route.

Zoë Chafe studies air travel data to find a slow recovery. Don't forget that between 2000 and 2002, with 9/11 in between, "air travel fell by 73 billion passenger-kilometres or 2.4 per cent." Demand for domestic air transport is growing at 10 per cent in China, but only 2 per cent in the US. The bulk of what China is going to add to its fleet is likely to be "single-aisle planes, built for short-haul, usually domestic, routes."

But the most fuel-efficient length is about 4,300 km; on short flights 25 per cent of fuel consumed is used in during takeoff. A trade-off, and this can reflect in the pricing of domestic flights. A book worth taking off with!

Economics@TheHindu.co.in

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