Jared Diamond explains pending resource collapse

The renowned author of “Collapse” and “Guns, Germs, and Steel,” using the “rule of 32,” explains how resource depletion could easily accelerate this century.

With population expected to move to 9 billion people before the end of the century, Diamond explains that if China and India, in particular, get close to Western levels of consumption, from the Western resource depletion point of view, it will actually be the equivalent of 72 billion people on the planet.

Diamond notes that if China and India are less wasteful, they can achieve much without U.S.-level energy guzzling. (Our energy consumption is twice that, per capita, of Western Europe.) At the same time, obviously, we have plenty of work to do on reducing our own consumption levels.