A newborn baby’s plaintiff cry resounds off walls. Such a loud exultation often welcomes the new residents into our world. At least echoes are the norm for nations with hospitals. However, what follows after birth is very dependent upon the birth location.
A person born in Canada today has the likelihood of living until they have seen 80.43 years pass by. A person’s annual consumption of energy, from primary sources, is 410 terajoules. Powering a human body in Canada is, in comparison, a paltry 5 gigajoules. Altogether, assuming constant consumption, this amounts to 33 exajoules per Canadian over a lifetime.
Now consider Sudan, a country with a similar population to Canada. Likely a Sudanese mother wouldn’t have the same support for child birth. With certainty, the child wouldn’t represent the same indenture on Earth’s resources. In Sudan, the annual consumption of energy from primary sources is about 32 gigajoules per person. The average annual food consumption amounts to about 2.9 gigajoules. With an average lifetime of 49.11 years, a person from Sudan would consume 1.7 terajoules over a lifetime.
Certainly the Canadian lifestyle is seen to have many virtues more resplendent than that of the Sudanese. But a Canadian life consumes 20 000 times the amount of energy of that of someone from Sudan. Can such a vastly dissimilar appropriation continue in a sustainable future?
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