1/5!!! Man, you're way off. We are only 300 million out of 6.5 billion. That's 1/20 of the world population. But that's not the reason we were attacked. It's because we wouldn't stop meddling in the conflict between the Jews and the Arabs in the Middle East.
And, yes, we know we're pigs. Most people just don't care. That and it's very difficult to live in the US without being an energy hog. We just don't have the mass transit infrastructure to dump cars in most cities. (Although every city with mass transit has no problems with keeping the seats filled.) That and our cities are very far from each other. It's costly to transport goods between cities.
I'm going to guess that you're European. I once had a German visit me where I live, in Michigan. Halfway through his stay, he announced that he was going to visit DisneyLand (in Florida) the next day. It took almost a half-hour for him to believe that it's a 36 hour bus ride from Michigan to Florida. New York is over 50 hours by car from Los Angeles. Contrast this to the distances between major European cities and you'll begin to see why we suck a lot more energy on moving things around.
I will say, though, that we do eat too much. It's just too easy with meat being cheaper than vegetables (seriously).  |