Worldwide “Consumer Class” Threatens the Planet’s Future

By Frankfurter Neue Presse

[This article originally published in: Frankfurter Neue Presse, April 28, 2004 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, www.rhein-main.net/sixcms/list.php…]

A worldwide “consumer class” with incredible growth rates in China and India is becoming an increasing threat to the natural resources of the earth. Today 19 percent of the Chinese and 12 percent of persons in India belong to this “consumer class” embracing 1.7 billion persons, the Worldwatch Institute writes in its latest report. The Heinrich-Boll-foundation and Germanwatch are co-editors of the German edition.

“We must raise the questions: What is enough? What is tolerable given the increased worldwide consumption of this planet?”, asked Klaus Milke, chairperson of Germanwatch. 243 million US citizens, 122 million Japanese, 76 million Germans, 240 million Chinese and 122 million persons in India belong to this well-funded class as persons with an annual income over $7000. “People in the South naturally have the right to consume just as much as people in the North. However the resources are finite,” Milke explained.

The chairperson of the Heinrich-Boll-foundation, Ralf Fucks, emphasized that modern mass consumption has surpassed the ecological limits on a broad front. Consumption has become self-evident for 1.7 billion persons on this globe while 2.8 billion struggle for their naked survival with less than two dollars per day. The wasteful lifestyle in industrial countries and the upper- and middle classes in developing countries and threshold countries contributes to the destruction of the ecological foundations of life for the poorer population classes.