Per Capita


The consumption rates of natural resources vary widely among individuals and nations. Americans, for example, on average use more wood and paper products and consume much more beef (which takes about 10 times as much energy to produce as the same nutritional amount of grains or vegetables) per person than almost any other nationality.

Indeed, people in the United States and Canada account for approximately 5.3% of the global population, yet they produce about 26% of global CO2 emissions ? one indicator of the amount of energy consumed.

While people often equate the amount of consumption with the level of comfort or the standard of living, large reductions in total consumption can be achieved with small improvements in energy efficiency, recycling of materials, and changes in patterns of production and distribution.

These changes appear to have little effect on the standard of living. For example, Canadians, U.S. citizens, and European Union members are generally considered to have comparable standards of living, yet Europeans on average use 47.2% as many resources per person (in oil energy equivalent units) as their North American counterparts.

Below are maps depicting relative geography, population, wealth, and CO2 emmissions. In each map, the color of the country remains the same; sizes of countries vary depending on relative population, wealth, and CO2 emmissions, respectively.

This map depicts the world's relative geography.

This map depicts the distribution of the world's population.

This map depicts the distribution of the world's wealth.

This map depicts global CO2 emmissions

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