What the Developed Countries Can Do When we view the problems of population from the perspective of global re
sources and the environment, as we should, the question of the relationship between population size and distribution and the depletion of many nonrenewable resources in developed and underdeveloped countries assumes major importance. In a world where 4.5% of the population, located in one country, the United States, accounts for over one-fifth annual world total energy use, we are clearly not dealing only or even primarily with a problem of numbers. We must also be concerned with the impact of rising affluence and the very unequal worldwide distribution of incomes on the depletion of many nonrenew able resources such as petroleum, certain basic metals, and other raw materials essential for economic growth. The use of fossil fuel energy to power private automobiles, operate home and office air conditioners, activate electric tooth
brushes, and so on in the developed nations is by far the major contributor of carbon dioxide (CO2) gases into the atmosphere and to the phenomenon of greenhouse global warming (see Chapter 10).24 It also means that there is po
tentially that much less to fertilize small family farms in the less developed nations. Alternatively, it means that poor families will have to pay more to obtain these valuable resource inputs.