[I think the point of this graphic from “The Economist.” is that we’re completely fucked.]
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petrolium use per day
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In our defense, we need more of the resources. The jets and tanks we use to protect the world don’t run on happy thoughts. Nor do the SUVs we need to protect our families.
To be fair, I suspect that graphic shows total usage and not per capita usage. We still win when it comes to per capita usage but maybe not by quite as much. So yeah…we’re pretty much fucked
Yes, it shows the Y axis to represent billions of gallons, so it is indicating total usage. That was the best way to lump Canada in with the rest of the world instead of over with us where it belongs.
If you consider that Canada’s population is about one-tenth of the population of the US, they aren’t doing too much better per capita than we are. However, just about every other country is. Japan is actually doing much better than I would have expected. While having about 43% of the population of the US, they appear here to only consume about 11% of the petrol we do. I think Japan has made dramatic improvements and upgrades in the way they manage energy over the past few decades. It should provide a model the US could learn from. Let’s start stealing their ideas for once.
The Japanese are much smaller than us though and they don’t need to move as fast.
Sure, the Japanese don’t need to move fast. But they like to. Did you see “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift”(2006)? Can you just imagine how much petrol they waste drifting so much?
I’d be interested in seeing how much China’s consumption has grown in the last 3 years. I don’t have the time right now to hunt down the details, but my impression is that China, India, and Brazil are all quick growing competitors for limited oiil reserves. China and Brazil are working with Venezuala to secure contracts at the exclusion of the US, China already has contracts in place with Canada to purchase a significant amount of their output as well.
I was talking with a friend last night who does a lot of work in China and Brazil. He made a couple of interesting observations. The first was that China is going into third world countries ( especially in African oil rich countries ) and developing their infrastructures in exchange for first right of refusal on resources. His take on this was that it makes the World Bank obsolete. The WB gives loans and dictates repayment and develpment. China is flat out giving away infrastructure. They have trillions of dollars to invest, whereas the US has a 9 trillion dollar national debt. The second observation he made was about the order of dates when expressed. In the US, the month comes first. In Europe, the day comes first. In China, the year comes first. Assuming that first in order represents first in importance, China places their emphasis on the year- take fromt that what you will. The third was about rights of the individual versus the state and the effect that has on the cost of labor and a sense of unity ( I argued that a sense of unity by coercion/ force rather than by persuasion/reason is the difference between drifting toward barbarism versus stewarding a civil society, but, as shown by studies on Confirmation Bias, most of us are not using our frontal lobes to make decisions anyway so it seems that in both instances the result is a bunch of lemmings-in one case they are being hearded, in the other they are following sweet pipe music. )
We’re boned. Not because we consume a lot of petroleum, but because we are likely going to be forced to consume less in a global free market.
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/2/28/Aerosmith_-_Pump.JPG