Table of Contents
C. Consumption and Production Dynamic
Everything that we do, our lives, and our relationship with the environment and the ecology are governed by a fine dynamic of Consumption and Production. Therefore in order to maintain a balance in the ecology we need to produce and give back to ecology as much as we consume.
Limited energy
Certain things like Solar energy are unlimited. However, nearly all other resources are extremely limited. For instance, we have a limited amount of reserved drinking water. So when the human population increases and a lot of drinking water is utilized in manufacturing and households, the water levels start depleting. Even though in the modern days, we process sewage water, and seawater and convert them to drinking water, such processing also takes massive amounts of energy, and significant pollution is generated by such processing plants.
Limited Land
The same goes true for habitable lands. For example, the Sahara desert is 8% of the total land of the earth, which needless to say is inhospitable. There is no water in Sahara, and the land is not suitable for agriculture. Due to this population can not settle in Sahara.
As a whole, 24% of the Earth’s land mass is mountainous. Amazon forest covers 4% of the Earth’s land, whereas Antarctica is 2.7% of the Earth’s land. All the deserts including Sahara construct about 33% of the earth’s land. Therefore merely 40% of the 29% of land areas on earth is suitable for human colonies and establishment. That is merely 11% of the total earth.
As the population grows, availability of the resources reduces
Our planet’s human population has recently crossed 8 billion. That is 8,000 crore people. On average, each human requires about 6 liters of minimum daily water and 2000 cal of daily food. More water requires more rainfall. It is only through the rainfall that the saline sea water becomes cloud and we get fresh drinkable water. Plants and forests enable humid weather that governs the process of rainfall. To support more population, we need to deforest more, which reduces rainfall and thus drinkable water percentage. With the reduced rainfall, agriculture output reduces. This further reduces human workability.
If we look very closely into our food habits, with each passing day, we are pushing for more carbohydrates and sugar. Because the agricultural output is becoming limited, we have to meet the energy needs with limited production. This reduces complete food, micronutrients, and our body and brain’s ability to stay healthy reduces drastically.
