One greed six earths: The inner emptiness behind global consumption

New analysis warns humanity exceeds earth’s limits while inner emptiness fuels unchecked consumption.

- ACHARYA PRASHANT

If everyone on the planet lived like the average American, humanity would need six Earths. Even now, we already consume the equivalent of 1.7 each year, using in twelve months what the planet takes nineteen to regenerate. This is not a forecast but a measurement. The Earth's overpopulation is no longer opinion; it is an established fact. The debate ended long ago. What continues is denial, distraction, and delay.

At the root of this crisis lies a deeper falsehood: the belief that outer accumulation can fill the inner void. To face that lie, two movements are required: an honest look at planetary facts to strip the lie of its arguments, and an honest willingness to examine one’s inner mischief. This article attempts both: the planetary facts first, and then the inner acknowledgement.

PLANETARY FACTS: THE ARITHMETIC OF EXCESS

The Global Footprint Network, using UN data, calculates how many Earths would be required if everyone adopted various national lifestyles. If all lived like Americans, we would need 5.1 Earths; like Europeans, 2.9; even at middle-income Indian levels, the figure crosses two. Global consumption at that rate could sustain only three to four billion people. We stand at 8.2 billion. Arithmetic does not negotiate.

Overpopulation does not mean people pressed shoulder to shoulder. It means human demand exceeds the planet's capacity to renew. The common objection, “only five percent of land is densely populated; look at all the empty space,” confuses standing room with carrying capacity. The so-called empty ninety-five percent includes deserts, mountains, tundra, forests, and wetlands: systems that absorb carbon, regulate climate, and sustain life. They include agricultural land that feeds the dense five percent. Convert them to settlement, and the biosphere collapses faster. Emptiness is not spare capacity; it is life support.