Chapter 5

When I was reading the analysis of China’s natural resources, I was baffled. I think that the government and people are culturally overstepping their bounds. The same kind of mentality was discussed in an earlier chapter about how the Chinese people have been trying to sell and then resell the land that even people are already living on. However, the Chinese people have continued to sell the land that has previously been for farming. I could not immediately notice a missing factor in Dodson’s review of China. I think that the main points discussed; land, water, and natural resources - are all probably the most important points. I was really surprised when Dodson said that on the Diamond scale the United States was at 32 with China rising from 11. I think that it is ridiculous that we use 32 times what we produce. I think that if China continues on this path, the whole world will completely run out of resources and become unable to support the US and China. I also think that if the United States continues to use as many resources as it does, we might soon also face the same fate as China. However, I feel that activists have already started the ball rolling in keeping the United States spending and consumption in check. In this way, maybe, if we stay at the same place of production, the United States will not collapse like China seems poised to. However, the fact that China does not have these ground up movements or changes in mentality in motion already, it might quickly become too late for them as a country to recover from all their consumption.