What’s So Special About 32?

Actress Angelina Jolie may be 32 years old – or was a couple of years ago – and RAF squadron leader Jack Blair was 32 when he died in the Netherlands during WWII.  The nationally-syndicated Arthur Smith Show ran for 32 consecutive years on television, including guests such as Johnny Cash and Richard Nixon, before it aired its last broadcast in 1982.  The answer to the ultimate question about life, the universe, and everything à la Douglas Adams’ popular book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, was not 32, but 42.

But these are not the reasons why the number, 32, is so special.

The number, 32, is the relative per capita consumption rate of the estimated one billion people who live in developed countries.  That is, relative to the 5.5 billion other people in the world who constitute the developing world.  Their relative per capita consumption rate is mostly down to 1!  On average, then, each American consumes 32 times as much as a person in Albania, Iraq, Syria, or Kenya.

You can read a rather jarring article about all this in a New York Times op-ed piece by Dr. Jared Diamond, professor of geography at the University of California in Los Angeles, at  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02diamond.html.

If India, China, and the whole developing world were suddenly to catch up with our high-consumption lifestyles in North America, Western Europe, Japan, and Australia, it would be as if the world population ballooned to 72 billion people.  And who’s crazy enough to think that this ole’ world can support 72 billion people?  That’s billion … with a B!  B is also the first letter for words such as bipolar, biocide, bipartisan, breakdown, and Byzantine – words that seem to describe various aspects of our current global crises, all human-caused crises that have our burgeoning population and increasingly invasive technologies as their ultimate causes.

The letter, B, is also the first letter for such words as baloney, bluff, boondoggle, bugaboo, and bunk.  These words figure notably among skeptics whose “head in the sand” attitude toward issues such as global climate change, acid precipitation, habitat fragmentation, and species extinction are simply exasperating for us ecologists and environmental educators.  We see the evidence firsthand every day in our professional lives.  I, for one, am no longer interested in endless debate about their reality.  Gravity works, living things evolve, natural resources are finite, and global climate change is NOW.  It’s time for lasting solutions.

How about a look at just one finite resource issue for us here in Roanoke County?  Water.  In particular, water in our toilets.

Toilets are a leading cause of household water leaks.  The average toilet (that is, the older 5.5 gallon flush toilet) uses 13,000 gallons of fresh water per year to dispose of 165 gallons of body waste: that’s 78 gallons of fresh water for every gallon of our waste.  For this reason, the 1.6-gallon ultra-low flush toilets –despite their occasional fussy nature – are now required on new constructions nationwide.

5.5 gallons per flush.  Roanoke County, including the City of Roanoke, has about 300,000 residents.  Let’s assume that every person flushes at least once per day, using the older model.  That’s 1.65 million gallons of water literally going down the drain every day, not including water for lawns, water for car washes, water for laundry and dishes, and of course water for drinking.  Add to this the water used by industry, businesses, municipalities, golf courses, and all the accoutrements of lifestyles in developed countries – and our daily demand for fresh water as just one of the world’s limited natural resources is GIGANTIC!

So let’s begin to use some “C” terminology such as common sense, conserve, catalyst, and change: It’s only common sense to conserve; to be a catalyst for change; to take a chance that, ultimately, this will save us cash, curb our appetites, and create a community of wise consumers.  It begins with choice and a sense of personal conviction.  And that’s COOL in a climate of global warming!

We simply must reduce that number, 32, to something equitable and sustainable across the planet: for both developed and developing nations.  We have the health and well-being of our children and grandchildren to consider.  What kind of world do we wish them to inherit from our consumptive lifestyles?  American essayist Henry David Thoreau offered a practical solution: “Simplify, simplify, simplify.”