How much stuff does it take to not be poor? About 6 tons per year

How much stuff do people need to lead a decent life? It’s a hard, and subjective, question. But researchers have now estimated for the first time what it takes, quantitatively speaking, to keep one person out of abject poverty : about 6 tons per year of food, fuel, clothing, and other supplies, researchers report this month in Environmental Science & Technology . The first-of-its-kind estimate is “a remarkable step forward,” says Stefan Bringezu, an expert in sustainable resource management at the University of Kassel who was not involved with the research. “They shed light on the physical basis of our society and economy in a comprehensive and rather detailed way.” According to Bringezu, the findings contain good news: They suggest that ending poverty can be done without taking an unbearable toll on the planet itself. The study comes as the United Nations wrestled this week with exactly that daunting challenge. The U.N. is trying to kick-start progress on its Sustainable Development Goals, a set of 17 grand ambitions that include ending poverty worldwide by 2030 , while also preventing environmental degradation and fighting climate change. Fossil fuels get a lot of attention in this debate, but raw materials such as cement, metal, timber, and grain are also important because their production and refining contributes about 23% of carbon emissions and more than 90% of biodiversity loss. To make the new estimates, en...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news