If+We+Bring+The+Good+Life+To+All,+Will+We+Destroy+The+Planet?

If We Bring The Good Life To All, Will We Destroy The Planet? National Public Radio (NPR) 7 February 2018. 8 February 2018 @https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/02/07/583475222/if-we-bring-the-good-life-to-all-will-we-destroy-the-planet

Cridland, James. "Crowd" //Flickr.// 23 June, 2007. []

__Summary__
====The article begins by mentioning efforts to better everyone's lives by having access to resources, like: clean water, healthcare, income, education, and such. The article then poses the question "If we were to succeed in providing all this, what would be the cost to the environment?" We try to improve conditions to accommodate the seven billion people that live on the Earth, but by doing so, we slowly damage the environment. A group of economists came up with eleven different social indicators comparing them to seven environmental harm indicators. By doing this, the economists were able to take data form 150 countries in hopes of finding at least a few example countries that would provide a good life for their citizens while staying in their environmental damage per capita. Unfortunately, the economists had observed that countries that did well on the social indicators used resources that would be impossible to extend to the world; the countries that consume resources sustainably do poorly on social indicators. Some countries even do poorly on social and environmental indicators, such as the U.S. and China. The article ends with the idea that we should redistribute wealth according to the curve of diminishing returns; provide resources where they will cause larger effects than in the hands of the people with excess.====

__Relation to Class__
====In APES, we briefly discussed and have taken notes on the idea of a Cultural Carrying Capacity. This idea was coined by Garrett Hardin, in which he relates ethics to biology. In order to sustain the environment, we would either need to cut down our population to provide luxuries for everyone, or we can continue our population growth by providing bare necessities (Miller 266, 267). The article talks about the basics of a Cultural Carrying Capacity, but never mentions it; it provides similar ideas such as redistributing wealth and reducing population so we can sustainably live. We would need to calculate our optimum sustainable population by deciding what our culture carrying capacity should be.====

__My Opinion__
====Personally, I agree with the article in the idea that we should cut down our population size and redistribute wealth and resources; no one country should be living luxuriously while others suffer from the historical effects of exploitation. To at least begin, we should fix our own country first; how do we manage to have such extreme patriotism when our country can't even check off either social indicators or environmental indicators that we're a great country? We should reform //something// to at least begin our social and environmental journey to being sustainable.====

__Law__
====This article deals slightly with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970, which requires a comprehensive evaluation of the environmental impact of an activity before it is undertaken by a federal agency. The U.S. does not have any population control laws as of yet, but we could at least evaluate our environmental impact of an activity before it takes place. The article suggests we take a strict route with our environmental impact as to live sustainably.====