I seem to be laboring under the impression that Western civilization
does less damage to the environment, per capita, than your average Third
World country. Unfortunately, I can't remember where I got that
impression from. I recall that Western farming is much more efficient,
requiring less land for more output; I recall that the massive
forest-clearing needed to produce Third World farmland is not good for
the ecology; and I recall that poorer countries have much higher rates
of population growth. However, I still don't know what the actual
figures are for actual "damage" to the environment with respect to
Western civilization and Third World countries.
I'm looking for figures on things like pollution produced and waste
produced, not, say, energy consumption. Presumably you can consume ten
times as much energy for a tenth of the environmental cost if you use
nuclear energy instead of burning wooden logs.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/beyond.html
Typing in Dvorak Programming with Patterns Writing in Gender-neutral
Voting for Libertarians Heading for Singularity There Is A Better Way
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