Consumption Problem

So I was emailed one of those "How many worlds would it take if everyone lived like you" surveys, and I was like wow it would take 3-4 world to support my fat ass.  I don't pay THAT much attention to how sustainable I'm being, but I'm probably living a more moderate life then most people who read blogs.  Then I heard from another couple people who really try to be "green" and say they could only get down to 3 worlds and then I stopped feeling guilty and was like WTF.

So living sustainable doesn't work for people who really work at it, so whats the problem?  I started with the basic calculation [Lifestyle x Global population(6,700,000,000)] = # of Earths needed.

Like Al pointed out we only have one planet, so our resources are fixed.  The greenies are having trouble getting their consumption down which leaves one variable few people are talking about changing, the population.  See the world has a reproduction problem, not a consumption problem.  To justify this statement lets go in the way back machine to 1950.  In 1950 the worlds population was around 2,521,000,000.  Running our calculation again we see that with a few minor adjustments to lifestyle we could live with only one earth (ie better fuel efficiency or recycling or eating more local foods, etc) if we had the same population.

In 60 years our population has skyrocketed by over 250%.   So someone living a sustainable lifestyle in 1950 would need to live with 40% of what they had today.

In 2050 at the current rate of growth they would need to live with 25% of what they had.  Just a thought.