Living in a world of resource constraints

I am starting to blog again after a very long hiatus. Many a times I have picked up my pen to share something but for some unknown strange feeling I would leave the task incomplete. It was never the lack of material - on the contrary it was always excess material which would force me to go into an introspection of what to share and what not to share, with the obvious result of nothing getting shared.

It's interesting how the world is shaping up these days. Over a lunch conversation my friend and I were talking about how in the years to come we are going to be a very intolerant society mainly because of lack of resources. When I got back to desk, I did some math. As people live longer, the resource constraint is going to be even more acute because as we grow older we consume more resources. Yes an old man might eat less, but in terms of resources, he compensates it by the need of healthcare  devices, pharmaceuticals, drugs and other necessary infrastructure that is needed to support him. In fact, as long as you are less than 10 years old, your resource consumption is fairly arithmetic progression. As you enter the teenage years, it becomes a steep geometric progression. And if you live beyond the regional life expectancy, you consume twice as much resources for 1/4th the productivity.

India's life expectancy in 1950's was about 42 years. Today, this figure has shot up to 67 years. Still a very poor number compared to the western world but a shocking figure if you look at it in a different angle. What it means is that an average Indian's life expectancy is going up by 12 hours per day, everyday! At a daily 'net birth' rate (birth - death), of 15 /1000 or about 15 million in a country of 1 bn+, and each one of them living 12 hours longer than the person born one day before them. To house and cater to additional 15m, we need to build one Mumbai every day - houses, schools, hospitals everything you can think of.

That's one angle. Another angle, is compare ourselves to other mammals. By far humans live longer than most mammals. And with advancement of technology where one can actually reconstruct even the most complex organs, re-do the skin, restore full eyesight etc,  we can only be sure that we are heading towards immortality. At least the TIME magazine believes that humans will become immortal by 2045. Which means we can very well expect other animals to walk the path of extinction as we devour the remaining resources. 

Morals vs Economics

Recently when Bangalore jumped in and joined thousands of other cities in celebrating (?) the earth hour, it got me thinking about the great media coverage of this symbolic display of love towards our planet. Symbolic because I really don't think it made a difference to the power consumption - at least not in India. While Bangalore plunged in darkness the pumpsets in the rural villages roared to life given the rare occasion of extra hour of electricity - where 6 hours of power a day is considered luxury.

Let's look at a case of moral dilemma that humans have faced in the past...
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In 1807, United Kingdom (or the then Empire) abolished slavery, which had begun in 1562, by passing the Slave Trade Act. The 'trade' was abolished but not slavery itself. It took another 20 years before slavery died out of fashion. While a vociferous group of Quakers and Evangelical Protestants can score a credit in forcing this legislation it was economics that eventually killed slavery. Back in the 17th century, large parts of the population didn't think it was in-human to purchase slaves and enhance their own quality of living. The argument was that, first, they could afford it and secondly they naturally believed it to be natures bounty and that some were condemned to be slaves while others to be masters. It was only a few who viewed at it from the 'moral' angle and looked at humans as humans, regardless of color, race or wealth.

Immediately after passing the law 'The Empire' went on an unprecedented foreign policy campaign asking other nations to pass similar laws. While outwardly the argument that the Empire took was 'it is morally wrong and against the spirit of Christianity', the real reasons were that it believed that its' colonies would become uncompetitive. In fact they enforced duties on other nations that continued to support slave trading.

But by mid 1800's slavery was no longer the 'in' thing. Large slave traders, namely cotton growers and plantation companies, realised that free markets were better and cheaper. The difference in pay between a slave and a free man was not too significant but slaves came at an additional cost. They had to be fed, medically cared, housed and were a burden during recession. As such 'Christian moral superiority' had little to do away with slavery.
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Fast forward to 21st century. The last decade has seen more power consumption than all the years put together since electrticity was discovered. Global consumption of natures resources continues to increase at geometric rate and we have the modern day 'Quakers and Christian Evangelists' under the garb of Green Peace, Friends of Earth, Al Gore et al., telling us how it is morally wrong for us to consume more than what we require. Like the 17th century slave consumers, we tend to use water and other natural resources as if it is our right. People in Sadashivnagar consume more water than a dozen villages in rural areas. They don't lose sleep at night nor do they ever worry about the 'moral' aspect of it (now do you realise why slave traders never felt guilt)?

I am no saint. Few years ago my house was lit up using those old incandescent light bulbs before I switched to compact flourescent bulbs. Why? Because it economically made sense. My bills slashed by half. I didn't change the bulbs because I thought it was morally correct. And in another year I will probably shift to LCD bulbs because my bills will be a tenth of what it is today.

What drives the larger population is economics. Not the moral argument. Unless the economics of using and replenishing the resources starts to touch the common man, even a million earth hours will not make a difference.