Ecological Footprints Reformatted

Fred Pearce reports about ecological footprints and whether comparing such footprints on a national level is useful in global warming talks. In New Scientist (8.4.2006) he describes "the footprint is an estimate of the land used to sustain a population. Its main components are land directly built on; the fields, forests and mines employed at home and abroad to meet consumer needs; and the national amount of land needed to absorb pollutants like carbon dioxide." Generally, the footprint is used to compare the waste of resources, for instance, of industrialized countries in comparison to developing nations on a per capita basis. "This puts the superconsuming US at the top, with almost 10 hectares of land needed to supply each American. Australia is close behind, requiring almost 8 hectares per citizen. Western European states and Japan require between 5 and 6, China less than 2 and India around 1 hectare," writes Pearce. But if you put these figures in relation with the available resources of biosphere in these countries, the U.S., Canada and Australia perform quite better, and dense populated countries rise in the rankings. Well, it's a statistics trick on the grounds of a nationalist view. Now the heat is on how to interpret this point.