A special issue of National Geographic: 2010 State of the Earth contains some staggering (to me) facts about America’s gluttony. Here are a few of the facts, and issues they raise for innovators:

•  America has only 5 per cent of the world’s population, yet uses a quarter of the world’s energy.

* Innovators: How can you get Americans to consume less energy? Gasoline in Europe is  about $8 a gallon; in America it currently averages $3.45, or less than half. Why? 

•  27 per cent of food available for consumption in America is discarded. This is enough to feed 80 million people:  almost enough to feed, for instance, four times the population of Australia, or everyone in Germany. Or, at 1,500 calories a day, almost all the hungry people in India.

*  Innovators: How can you get Americans to throw away less food? How can this wasted food be used for the poor and hungry? 

•  Only one-third of agricultural consumption in America is used directly for food. The rest is for animal feed. It takes 7 calories of animal feed to make one edible calorie of meat. If Americans ate their agricultural crops rather than fed them to animals, they could feed much of the rest of the world. Also: some 18% of all human-related greenhouse gases come from animals!

* Innovators: How can you get Americans to use more of their agricultural production for food and less for wasteful animal feed? How can you get Americans to eat less meat?

•  In 1970 Americans consumed 2,234 calories daily on average. In 2003, it was 2,757 calories, or 23 per cent more. 

*  Innovators: How can you get Americans to consume the amount of calories they consumed in 1970, thus saving resources and reducing enormous human and social costs of rampant obesity?

As leaders of the world meet in Bangkok, and later this year in Copenhagen, to discuss global warming, each leader will dump the blame and the pain on other countries. Can President Obama, surprise winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, stun everyone and make the following statement:

Gluttonous America is primarily responsible for global warming. We accept responsibility. We accept the onus for taking painful measures to reduce our gluttony. We will do this before demanding the same from other countries. We will slash our appetite for energy and for calories and for meat. We will become vegetarians. We will ride bicycles. We will build and drive small electric cars. Only then will we demand that other countries do the same.

Some say the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded (as Obama himself claimed) to put ‘wind in the sails’ of good causes, rather than reward actual results. 

Will Obama use this ‘wind’? Or will he simply generate more and more hot air?