Research results show that a 'sustainable and poverty-free future' can be achieved without reducing the population



While the destruction of the global environment by humans has become a major issue and the goal is to realize a sustainable society, there is also a backlash that 'if we try to realize a sustainable society, people's living standards will drop significantly.' .. A new paper published by a British research team states that 'there are enough resources on earth to provide a non-poverty standard of living for all humankind.'

Providing decent living with minimum energy: A global scenario --ScienceDirect

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378020307512

A Sustainable, Poverty-Free Future Is Possible For All Humanity, Study Reveals
https://www.sciencealert.com/we-don-t-have-to-return-to-the-dark-ages-to-live-in-a-sustainable-future

Many recognize that modern human societies and the world economy need to undergo major transformations to avoid ecosystem collapse. On the other hand, there are many people in the world who are forced to live in poverty because their material needs are not met, and they talk about alternatives such as 'whether to take environmental problems or poverty problems'. Is often reached. To the extreme, some argue that 'environmental activists are threatening people's lives.'

The resources that exist on the earth are limited, and it has become a major problem in realizing a sustainable society. A 2018 study pointed out that 'a globally sustainable level of resource use cannot provide the basic human needs of a population of more than 7 billion.'

These forecasts are often based on a modern lifestyle with continuous economic growth and high consumption. However, research teams at the University of Leeds and Yale University in the United Kingdom and the University of Lausanne in Switzerland have said that 'a good life' that meets the basic needs equally for the entire population without compromising the everyday comfort of modern life. Claimed to be able to provide. It argues against the cliché that 'environmentalists want all humanity to return to cave life.'



The 'good life' advocated by the research team has the following conditions.

・ 2000-2150kcal meals per day.
・ 50 liters of clean water is supplied per day, of which 15 liters can be used as comfortable hot water for bathing.
・ The temperature inside the house is kept at 20 degrees throughout the year.
・ Each household has cooking utensils, refrigerators, low-energy lighting equipment, notebook PCs, etc., and each person owns his or her own telephone.
-PC can access the global network.
・ A person can travel 5,000 to 15,000 km per year using various transportation services.
・ Universal insurance service.
・ It is possible to educate all people aged 5 to 19 years.

While these conditions may be unsatisfactory for people living in developed countries, they are significantly higher standards of living for many in poverty. By 2050, the environment could reduce global energy consumption by as much as 60%, to the same level as in the 1960s, the researchers say.



The research team pointed out that 17% of the world's energy consumption at the time of writing the article comes from renewable energy. This accounts for about half of the energy consumption required when switching to a sustainable society.

In the next 30 years, it is not very realistic for people all over the world to switch to the “good life” advocated by the research team. For example, it takes a lot of energy to replace existing housing equipment with a new building that requires less energy for heating and cooling as proposed by the research team. However, even if all the buildings are replaced, the benefits of reduced energy consumption will outweigh the benefits in the future.

Joel Millward-Hopkins, the lead author of the paper, said, 'Our research as a whole has a long-standing claim that'technical solutions already exist to help reduce energy consumption to sustainable levels.' It matches with. ' He argued that the material sacrifices associated with reducing energy consumption were smaller than people could imagine.



in Science, Posted by log1h_ik