Education for Sustainable Living, Environmental Respect, and Celebrating the Quality of Life.

Resource Consumption

        The world's population, which has grown to some 6.45 billion people as of November 2004, has many needs:  energy (for transportation, food production, heating, cooking, medicines, cleaning etc.), shelter, food, clothing, to name just a few.  Currently, we are consuming our resources at an extravagant rate - from fossil fuels (we have depleted about half of the total petroleum supply), forests (diminishing at an estimated 1% per year), to topsoil (it takes approximately 100 years to form 1 inch of topsoil, and topsoil loss (wind and water erosion) continues to exceed tolerable rates in many areas).   

        Depleting resources should not necessarily be synonymous with a growing economy.  A stable and sustainable economy should be built on  a foundation of renewable resources and balance consumption with growth.  What we need is a more creative economy that starts to look at ways to power the world more cleanly and efficiently, and to produce more with less raw materials.  

       Ayers (1999) cites some interesting examples of doing more with less:  urban rail uses 1/6th the energy per passenger mile as a commuter's car and produces 1/8th the CO₂ per ton of material transported by truck.  New wood composites are stronger building materials and can support more weight while using less raw material.  We must continue to study new ways of doing more with less material. 

Putting knowledge to work with the people of Maine

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Last Modified: 09/13/2006
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Water Quality Office, University of Maine Cooperative Extension.
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