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146

Are there enough resources in the world to allow everyone (or at least the vast majority) to live comfortably and happily? (pawb.social)

submitted 3 days ago by Inkstainthebat@pawb.social to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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I kinda went on a little research spree on economics this afternoon but at one point I figured it's probably good to know if it's possible for, say, at least 98% of people on earth to live a happy fulfilled life at all.

I know there's plenty of people who'd be more than happy to have literally nothing more than a house, food and water, but that still leaves a whole lot of people who want other things in life.

Do we have any metrics or data on wether the earth can sustain roughly 8 billion humans?

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[–] EightBitBlood@lemmy.world 29 points 3 days ago

Yes, absolutley without question we can. And it wouldn't even take that much resources.

The most recent wide scale study that was done was focused entirely on the world's "needs" being satisfied in addition to basic resources like food and water.

The conclusion: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452292924000493

Provisioning decent living standards (DLS) for 8.5 billion people would require only 30% of current global resource and energy use, leaving a substantial surplus for additional consumption, public luxury, scientific advancement, and other social investments.

Strategies for development should not pursue capitalist growth and increased aggregate production as such, but should rather increase the specific forms of production that are necessary to improve capabilities and meet human needs at a high standard, while ensuring universal access to key goods and services through public provisioning and decommodification. At the same time, in high-income countries, less-necessary production should be scaled down to enable faster decarbonization and to help bring resource use back within planetary boundaries.

With this approach, good lives can be achieved for all without requiring large increases in total global throughput and output.