1. Projecting India’s Resource Use in 2050
A Provisional Carrying Capacity
Steven Augarten
Laura Cole
Madeleine Goldstein
Leigh Huffine
Rosalind Parry
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2. Our Approach to Carrying Capacity:
Traditional carrying capacity, the moment at which a population of people is unable to sustain itself, is defined as the limitations placed on the population by resources
We created a reverse carrying capacity: Rather than examining how resources limit the population, we looked at how the population affects the resources
We examined the effects of lifestyle and population growth on the availability of resources
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3. Methodology: Scenarios and Growth Rates
The “Status Quo” Scenario
The “American Way” Scenario
The “J. Lo” Scenario
The “Crunchy Granola” Scenario
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4. Methodology: Scenarios and Growth Rates
Constant growth at 1.4%
25% reduction of growth to 0.83%
Reduction to a pre-industrial growth rate to .265%
Reduction to a 0.0% growth rate
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5. Zooming in on the “American Way”
A 0.0% growth rate
A population of 1,522,524,845 people
Is America’s resource consumption sustainable within India’s current resources and production rates?
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6. Agriculture and Food Production
The required amount of consumption:
150 million metric tons of food per year
This is 80 million more metric tons of food per year than they now produce
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7. Water Use The total water withdrawal in India would have to be:
x 1015 m3 per year
India’s current per capita water availability:
x 1012 m3
India is x 1015 m3 short of sustaining this amount of water withdrawal
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8. Energy Use Projected energy consumption: 508.05 EJ
Total energy production in 2002: EJ
With importation (17%) they can obtain about 21 EJ
Is not sustainable
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9. Households Average size of a US household: 1795 feet2
Average number of people per household: 2.5
Area of India: 3,287,590 km2
Other considerations
Is sustainable, but increases the demand on resources
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10. Concluding
India’s resources would be incapable of sustaining anything close to our current consumption in America
Illuminates issues of sustainability, development, limited resources, population growth, and a global market economy
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