Here is a small confession : I don't consider myself to be normal. I wish I was. I strive to save energy, reduce the damage I do to the planet and work hard to think of solutions to our environmental crisis. That is not normal. If it was, then I could probably carry on living with few cares in the world - except maybe what will happen to my children when they become teenagers!
Not being normal doesn't make me better than anyone else though, at least not in the eyes of the majority of people in the highly industrialised society I live in. In the UK, this is what normal looks like:
· There are 26.3 million cars in the UK, that is 0.6 cars for every single adult. Each person travels 6600km (4000 miles) every year by car.
· 25.4 million tonnes of household waste (excluding sewerage) is produced every year. That is 423kg for every human in the UK, every single year.
· In total, each person in the UK consumes 11 barrels of oil, 1600 cubic metres of natural gas and 1100kg of coal every year.
If you are in the USA, you too can be normal!
All you have to do is:
· Drive 23700km (14800 miles) per year.
· Produce 843kg of domestic waste per year.
· Consume 25 barrels of oil, 2100 cubic metres of natural gas, and 3680kg of coal, every year.
A normal person in the USA consumes at least twice as much energy and materials, and drives over 3 times as far as a normal person in the United Kingdom. Figures for most of western Europe are about the same as for the UK; figures for Canada and Australia are about the same as those for the USA. So, depending on where you live, how normal do you feel now?
And don’t forget we all live on planet Earth, along with about 6.5 billion others. We are all human, and a normal human being consumes just 4.6 barrels of oil, 433 cubic metres of natural gas, and 900kg of coal.
In fact, based on the energy output of these three fuels, a normal member of the human race consumes just one fifth the fossil fuel energy of the normal USA citizen. Now do you feel normal?
The problem with being normal is that we just don't realise how much impact that "normal" state is having on the planet. If everyone on Earth were a normal American we would need more than 9 planets to sustain us. As it is we are already exceeding the capacity of the Earth to support us - because normal is just too much.
But who am I to tell you that you are wrong in the way that you live? Surely the definition of "wrong" revolves around what is not normal behaviour to the majority of a society. Whatever part of the world you live in, the normal person is surely behaving in a morally acceptable way for that part of the world. I cannot tell you that you are doing wrong, simply because my views don't tally with those of most other people in my small part of the world.
But I can ask you to look at this on a global scale, where it is clear that the high-intensity consumer is still very much the exception on this planet of rapidly dwindling natural riches. Riches that are dwindling because of all the people that are told, day after day, that it is perfectly normal to be driving an SUV to the convenience store rather than walking (the irony of that word "convenience"), leaving televisions and computers consuming fossil fuels while no-one is using them, and filling our faces and our houses with the biggest, latest and most exciting of everything.
It's time to rethink the meaning of "normal" and see ourselves as gross consumers that have gone too far. Abnormally so, in fact.
(Original article published at :
http://earth-blog.bravejournal.com/entry/20171)
· There are 26.3 million cars in the UK, that is 0.6 cars for every single adult. Each person travels 6600km (4000 miles) every year by car.
· 25.4 million tonnes of household waste (excluding sewerage) is produced every year. That is 423kg for every human in the UK, every single year.
· In total, each person in the UK consumes 11 barrels of oil, 1600 cubic metres of natural gas and 1100kg of coal every year.
If you are in the USA, you too can be normal!
All you have to do is:
· Drive 23700km (14800 miles) per year.
· Produce 843kg of domestic waste per year.
· Consume 25 barrels of oil, 2100 cubic metres of natural gas, and 3680kg of coal, every year.
A normal person in the USA consumes at least twice as much energy and materials, and drives over 3 times as far as a normal person in the United Kingdom. Figures for most of western Europe are about the same as for the UK; figures for Canada and Australia are about the same as those for the USA. So, depending on where you live, how normal do you feel now?
And don’t forget we all live on planet Earth, along with about 6.5 billion others. We are all human, and a normal human being consumes just 4.6 barrels of oil, 433 cubic metres of natural gas, and 900kg of coal.
In fact, based on the energy output of these three fuels, a normal member of the human race consumes just one fifth the fossil fuel energy of the normal USA citizen. Now do you feel normal?
The problem with being normal is that we just don't realise how much impact that "normal" state is having on the planet. If everyone on Earth were a normal American we would need more than 9 planets to sustain us. As it is we are already exceeding the capacity of the Earth to support us - because normal is just too much.
But who am I to tell you that you are wrong in the way that you live? Surely the definition of "wrong" revolves around what is not normal behaviour to the majority of a society. Whatever part of the world you live in, the normal person is surely behaving in a morally acceptable way for that part of the world. I cannot tell you that you are doing wrong, simply because my views don't tally with those of most other people in my small part of the world.
But I can ask you to look at this on a global scale, where it is clear that the high-intensity consumer is still very much the exception on this planet of rapidly dwindling natural riches. Riches that are dwindling because of all the people that are told, day after day, that it is perfectly normal to be driving an SUV to the convenience store rather than walking (the irony of that word "convenience"), leaving televisions and computers consuming fossil fuels while no-one is using them, and filling our faces and our houses with the biggest, latest and most exciting of everything.
It's time to rethink the meaning of "normal" and see ourselves as gross consumers that have gone too far. Abnormally so, in fact.
(Original article published at :
http://earth-blog.bravejournal.com/entry/20171) 
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