With oil at $140 a barrel, the finger-pointing has begun in full earnest. Who’s to blame for the current energy crisis? The rhetoric from the US and other “Western” countries suggest that it’s the rise of India and China and their citizens’ new-found and now insatiable appetite for energy that’s brought oil prices to record levels. India and China in turn remind Uncle Sam that its energy consumption is way out of whack in proportion to its size and population. “One out of every 4 barrels of crude oil is consumed by an American” they intone. Now that’s a telling stat!
The fact is, all parties are to blame. Spoilt by years of cheap gas and an excellent road network that led to sprawling suburbia, Americans have been compelled to live up to their love affair with cars. Maybe that explains why American housewives need 6-seater minivans and giant SUV’s to take 3 kids to soccer practice and why the suburban husband turned weekend-handyman needs a Ford 150 pickup for an occasional trip to Home Depot.
And Indians and Chinese didn’t each need to produce a billion plus people that are now going to guzzle rapidly diminishing resources either. Well, unfortunately, now these people exist and these 2.5 billion people now want everything the Americans have had for years and taken for granted – homes, cars, uninterrupted power supply etc.
Does the planet really have the resources to keep feeding, clothing and entertaining 6 Billion people (9B projected by 2042)? If India and China (just to name two so-called developing countries), actually reach the standard of living they aspire to, won’t something have to give? If the recent run-up in energy and food prices are any indication, the answer is yes.
Lots of Indians have the attitude that “their time has now come” and that they deserve all the riches, comforts, extravagant lifestyles and amenities denied to them for so long, thanks to 40+ years of a ridiculous “mixed economy” that stifled innovation and free markets. But two wrongs don’t make a right. The responsibility for sustainable energy starts at home – it is futile to say that the US has wasted energy for years, so why should Indians be energy conscious now. The simple answer is that having produced 16-17% of this planet’s population, India and Indians have a major responsibility to make sure that other countries’ that have been more frugal with their copulation (or likely more sensible with contraception) don’t suffer needlessly. While the US may or may not do its part in reducing energy consumption, does India have a real Clean Energy policy? One that works and provides the right incentives? The nuclear deal helps, but is not a pancea by any means. For those that believe the nuclear deal alone is going to solve the country’s energy problems in time, can I have some of what you’re smoking?
