The China Syndrome: Booming Economy, Global Environmental Catastrophe

"China's scarcely imaginable growth in the coming years means that the world's population will simply run up against the limits of the planet's natural resources sooner than anyone imagines. If growth continues at 8 per cent a year...by 2031 China's population, likely to be 1.45 billion on current UN predictions, will have an income per person equivalent to that of the US today. [According to Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington DC], "China's grain consumption will then be two-thirds of the current grain consumption for the entire world. If it consumes oil at the same rate as the US today, the Chinese will be consuming 99 million barrels a day - and the whole world is currently producing 84 million barrels a day, and will probably not produce much more.

"'If it consumes paper at the same rate [the US does], it will consume twice as much paper as the world is now producing. There go the world's forests. If the Chinese then have three cars for every four people - as the US does today - they would have a fleet of 1.1 billion cars, compared to the current world fleet of 800 million. They would have to pave over an area equivalent to the area they have planted with rice today, just to drive and park them.'"