4 ms·

Higher consumption seems locked in since everyone wants, and believes they can get, a middle class life. Efficiency has to go into overdrive or we overheat the

by Zigurd 8y ago

Higher consumption seems locked in since everyone wants, and believes they can get, a middle class life. Efficiency has to go into overdrive or we overheat the planet. But, by conventional measures of output, efficiency can be recessionary. Phones and phone service will continue to decline in cost long after the market is saturated. We are headed for either a marvelous soft landing enabled by efficiency and population stability, or we are headed for a crunch with a return to mass starvation, an energy crisis, and economic crisis in general. It's really not obvious which will happen.

digi_owl 8y ago
When it comes to efficiency there is a certain observed paradox to consider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox The original observation involved the increased efficiency of extracting coal, and the subsequent boom in its use thanks to the drop in price, but can be generalized. Basic thing was that as the price of coal dropped, because more of it was extracted than before, uses that previous was considered unprofitable were put into practice.
- paganel 8y ago
  Adding to your coal example, let’s suppose that we somehow magically make all cars run on solar or renewable energy that has costs aproaching 0. What will most likely happen is that people will drive even more, we will have to build exponentially more roads (building a road is pretty polluting by itself, in terms of the materials being used) and the ecosystem will be even more threatened compared to now.
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    Feedback effects are often important, but can be overstated - for instance with the concept of risk homeostasis, or the Laffer curve. While reality is often counterintuitive, that doesn't mean the pattern "X causes -X or more" is automatically true.
eru 8y ago
> Efficiency has to go into overdrive or we overheat the planet. Just the efficiency of burning fossil fuels. We can afford to be wasteful with eg solar energy. (Efficiency is still great, but not required to avoid overheating.)
- jaggederest 8y ago
  We need to actually be net negative in total with usage of all energy sources at this point. We're already well into the overshoot, so we need to be actively cooling the planet. Either sinking carbon, converting other atmospheric GHGs to less harmful forms, or radiating energy into space outside the absorption bands of the atmosphere.
  - Zigurd 8y ago
    Or geoengineering, with the incredibly high risks that entails.

by Zigurd 8y ago

digi_owl 8y ago

When it comes to efficiency there is a certain observed paradox to consider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox The original observation involved the increased efficiency of extracting coal, and the subsequent boom in its use thanks to the drop in price, but can be generalized. Basic thing was that as the price of coal dropped, because more of it was extracted than before, uses that previous was considered unprofitable were put into practice.

paganel 8y ago
Adding to your coal example, let’s suppose that we somehow magically make all cars run on solar or renewable energy that has costs aproaching 0. What will most likely happen is that people will drive even more, we will have to build exponentially more roads (building a road is pretty polluting by itself, in terms of the materials being used) and the ecosystem will be even more threatened compared to now.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  Feedback effects are often important, but can be overstated - for instance with the concept of risk homeostasis, or the Laffer curve. While reality is often counterintuitive, that doesn't mean the pattern "X causes -X or more" is automatically true.

eru 8y ago

> Efficiency has to go into overdrive or we overheat the planet. Just the efficiency of burning fossil fuels. We can afford to be wasteful with eg solar energy. (Efficiency is still great, but not required to avoid overheating.)

jaggederest 8y ago
We need to actually be net negative in total with usage of all energy sources at this point. We're already well into the overshoot, so we need to be actively cooling the planet. Either sinking carbon, converting other atmospheric GHGs to less harmful forms, or radiating energy into space outside the absorption bands of the atmosphere.
- Zigurd 8y ago
  Or geoengineering, with the incredibly high risks that entails.