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The title is misleading in that it's not exactly the conclusion the article arrives at. The article has it quite the other way round: Once energy consumption d

The title is misleading in that it's not exactly the conclusion the article arrives at. The article has it quite the other way round: Once energy consumption doesn't grow anymore we either need more efficient means of growth (i.e. less energy consumption per growth unit) or we have to forego growth. It's pre-Industrial-Age Malthus all over again: Barring paradigm shifts that allow for more efficient production planet Earth can only sustain a maximum number of people (roughly 1 billion around Malthus' lifetime). However, Malthus' theory has been disproven time and time again precisely because there have always been such paradigm shifts that allowed us to sustain more people with fewer resources, in others words to increase GDP/NRJ as well as NRJ/POP. If NRJ/POP becomes stagnant either GDP/NRJ will have to grow rapidly or there won't by any GDP growth - and by extension population growth - anymore. I just don't get the seemingly recurring obsession with artificially limiting growth. Yes, thermodynamically the energy available ultimately is limited but that doesn't mean we should start to behave as if we've already reached thermodynamic equilibrium. What supporters of artificially limiting GDP growth often don't acknowledge is that placing such a limit also places a hard limit on population growth or even necessitates a reduction in population. In fiction, one staunch proponent of such an approach is Avengers villain Thanos, who doesn't want to decimate half of the Universe's population for a lark or because he's simply evil but because he's on a mission to free the Universe from growth and overpopulation. I suggest that instead of obsessing with the NRJ/POP term in the equation we focus on GDP/NRJ instead.

K0SM0S 7y ago
> I just don't get the seemingly recurring obsession with artificially limiting growth. At a basic level, it's a cognitive bias regarding economics, the idea of ultimate scarcity: a pie that's forever limited in size and that we all must share (opposite of a view of "abundance"). It however contradicts most of our experience of economics; throughout history champions of "abundance" (who dare to create it) are known as great kings and merchants and soldiers and religious figures. Facts are much less favorable to proponents of scarcity — such mindsets usually lead to economic crisis, under-development, stagnation. The scarcity view here would move that Earth is already saturated, no more room for anything / anyone, and thus we must all reduce our hopes and start sharing what little is there. Obviously, this is scientifically and economically absolutely wrong, the problem is more about distribution — the Earth is the kind of planet that can sustain 1,000 times more population, and that's low-balling it in terms of thermodynamics. It really is more a problem of energetic efficiency and now externalities (space industry to the rescue). On a cultural level, technology and development seem to map on a spectrum of perceptions ranging from "technological utopists" to "luddites" (believers in a technological doom). Both extremes are unlikely so most people/cultures fall in-between, around the center usually. It seems, again from history, from literature, that the best kind of development stems from a culture 'rather slightly positively biased towards technology' (with limits and caveats, what we could call a 'problem-solution driven society'). This was basically the bedrock of innovating Damascus around 1200, of innovating China (key moments throughout the last millennium), and of the scientific revolution in Europe, as well as 20th/21st century tech centers in America and Asia. My problem with anti-growth beliefs and scarcity proponents is they usually stop short of describing the whole picture, what implementing it actually does to populations, what economic slowdown or depression mean in real-felt terms for real-people. In my mind it's just as dangerous as saying "oh let's build a fascist state because that will be better to solve our problems, that's a risk worth taking!" On paper, maaaaaaybe, you might think that, as a thought experiment; in real life it just never worked. Never. That cure has always been worse than the disease. True for fascism, true for economic shrinking (and there's no "minimizing" growth, the minute you stop aiming for growth which isn't easy nor granted by the way, you find yourself in a world of depressed indicators and it becomes uncontrollable). Sometimes I feel like people don't realize that piloting a global economy is more like dog fighting or F1, it's not a walk in the park that we are free to take casually and amend to our liking — "oh, let's take this nice little path here!". No, it's hard, and when we fail too much, people die. It's not a toy to play with, it's a freaking hard tension between survival and progress. Idealism is very dangerous when met with complacency.
lapinot 7y ago
> If NRJ/POP becomes stagnant either GDP/NRJ will have to grow rapidly or there won't by any GDP growth - and by extension population growth - anymore. If i'm not mistaken that's a non sequitur. How do you link GDP growth and population growth? Why would an ever growing population even be a goal? > there have always been such paradigm shifts that allowed us to sustain more people with fewer resources No, paradigm shifts have allowed to sustain more people with more resources. Sure resources per people were smaller (eg more efficient processes), but global resource usage has always been growing (apart from recessions and other "bad" events where people actually died from stuff not working). This efficiency / resource usage counter-intuitive correlation is known as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox.
- zaroth 7y ago
  Resource usage per capita has never been higher, because the goal is not to do the same work with less, the goal is always to achieve more with more (or at least the same). Achieving “the same with less” at a macroeconomic level is actually impossible. Because if you reduce your inputs, you are by definition reducing demand for someone else’s outputs, leading to ultimately less demand for your outputs, i.e. a recession. The “way out” is for the increasing output to be more ecological harvested, less polluting, and more recyclable than before.
- BjoernKW 7y ago
  > How do you link GDP growth and population growth? GDP growth and population growth are inherently linked: In order to provide sufficient resources for a growing population resource production has to increase, either by more energy input or by more efficient production. If on the other hand population growth suddenly stopped and consumption per capita remained the same the only way for GDP to continue to grow would be to increase output per unit of work (i.e. the GDP/NRJ term from article). > Why would an ever growing population even be a goal? It's not as if someone purposefully sets this as a goal. Population growth given sufficient resources up to a point seems to be a naturally occurring phenomenon. If on the other hand we decide to deliberately constrain the availability of resources this in turn means putting a constraint on population growth as well. Ultimately, this means deciding who gets to live and who doesn't. If for whatever reason population growth stops naturally there's no need to establish growth as a goal for its own sake. However, artificially constraining growth seems inhumane to me. I can't remember the exact quote but somewhere in the epilogue of the first Dune novel Frank Herbert has planetary ecologist Liet Kynes say (or rather write because he's penning guidelines for educating the Fremen) something along the lines of: "Life is its own tool for ever more efficiently making use of the energy available within a system." In my opinion, that's a profound insight.
mrpopo 7y ago
> I suggest that instead of obsessing with the NRJ/POP term in the equation we focus on GDP/NRJ instead. That's what absolutely everyone has been doing for the past 70 years. What happens usually when energy efficiency is called the rebound effect. We will create more with as much energy, not create as much with less energy. Also, note that creating as much with less energy will limit GDP growth as well, as the GDP is based on creation of goods and services.
martythemaniak 7y ago
I guess we should give some props to Malthus - he may actually have the single most successful/impactful Zombie Idea (per Krugman's definition) in the history of the world. It's rather telling that even a place like Hacker News has trouble understanding what technology is, what it has done and what it can do.
wazoox 7y ago
"There have always been paradigm shifts, therefore there will be more", isn't that the very definition of wishful thinking? Jancovici's proposal isn't to artificially limit growth, it's to do realistic accounting. When you pull out a barrel of oil from the ground, you gain something (in GDP, etc) but you also lose something. If you never account for the losses in biodiversity, resources, clean water, etc then you can pretend you're "growing" while actually having net losses accumulating.
- BjoernKW 7y ago
  > "There have always been paradigm shifts, therefore there will be more", isn't that the very definition of wishful thinking? It'd be wishful thinking if there was no evidence to back up that claim. However, these paradigm shifts have happened in the past: hunter-gatherer society -> nomadism -> husbandry -> agriculture -> crop rotation -> industrialisation -> information age / green revolution -> digitalisation Extrapolating from that there's no reason to assume this will suddenly end. I'm in favour of doing realistic accounting. However, the original title was something along the lines of "In order to reduce energy consumption we need to give up growth.", which turns Jancovici's conclusion on its head. Not taking into account or neglecting the GDP/NRJ part of the equation and solely focussing on NRJ/POP is tantamount to falling for the same defeatist Malthusian fallacy that we're doomed anyway.
  - wazoox 7y ago
    > It'd be wishful thinking if there was no evidence to back up that claim. Sorry but no, this is a hint at best. This not evidence. Everything comes to an end, eventually. Regarding the GDP/NRJ ratio: the coupling is somewhat less strong, however we're far from the strong negative coupling that would be necessary for our coming energy landscape. As Jancovici said (in this article or another), we always went from an energy source to a better one ( hunting to agriculture; muscles to wind to coal to oil); we never experienced going back to less concentrated ones.

K0SM0S 7y ago

> I just don't get the seemingly recurring obsession with artificially limiting growth. At a basic level, it's a cognitive bias regarding economics, the idea of ultimate scarcity: a pie that's forever limited in size and that we all must share (opposite of a view of "abundance"). It however contradicts most of our experience of economics; throughout history champions of "abundance" (who dare to create it) are known as great kings and merchants and soldiers and religious figures. Facts are much less favorable to proponents of scarcity — such mindsets usually lead to economic crisis, under-development, stagnation. The scarcity view here would move that Earth is already saturated, no more room for anything / anyone, and thus we must all reduce our hopes and start sharing what little is there. Obviously, this is scientifically and economically absolutely wrong, the problem is more about distribution — the Earth is the kind of planet that can sustain 1,000 times more population, and that's low-balling it in terms of thermodynamics. It really is more a problem of energetic efficiency and now externalities (space industry to the rescue). On a cultural level, technology and development seem to map on a spectrum of perceptions ranging from "technological utopists" to "luddites" (believers in a technological doom). Both extremes are unlikely so most people/cultures fall in-between, around the center usually. It seems, again from history, from literature, that the best kind of development stems from a culture 'rather slightly positively biased towards technology' (with limits and caveats, what we could call a 'problem-solution driven society'). This was basically the bedrock of innovating Damascus around 1200, of innovating China (key moments throughout the last millennium), and of the scientific revolution in Europe, as well as 20th/21st century tech centers in America and Asia. My problem with anti-growth beliefs and scarcity proponents is they usually stop short of describing the whole picture, what implementing it actually does to populations, what economic slowdown or depression mean in real-felt terms for real-people. In my mind it's just as dangerous as saying "oh let's build a fascist state because that will be better to solve our problems, that's a risk worth taking!" On paper, maaaaaaybe, you might think that, as a thought experiment; in real life it just never worked. Never. That cure has always been worse than the disease. True for fascism, true for economic shrinking (and there's no "minimizing" growth, the minute you stop aiming for growth which isn't easy nor granted by the way, you find yourself in a world of depressed indicators and it becomes uncontrollable). Sometimes I feel like people don't realize that piloting a global economy is more like dog fighting or F1, it's not a walk in the park that we are free to take casually and amend to our liking — "oh, let's take this nice little path here!". No, it's hard, and when we fail too much, people die. It's not a toy to play with, it's a freaking hard tension between survival and progress. Idealism is very dangerous when met with complacency.

lapinot 7y ago

> If NRJ/POP becomes stagnant either GDP/NRJ will have to grow rapidly or there won't by any GDP growth - and by extension population growth - anymore. If i'm not mistaken that's a non sequitur. How do you link GDP growth and population growth? Why would an ever growing population even be a goal? > there have always been such paradigm shifts that allowed us to sustain more people with fewer resources No, paradigm shifts have allowed to sustain more people with more resources. Sure resources per people were smaller (eg more efficient processes), but global resource usage has always been growing (apart from recessions and other "bad" events where people actually died from stuff not working). This efficiency / resource usage counter-intuitive correlation is known as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox.

zaroth 7y ago
Resource usage per capita has never been higher, because the goal is not to do the same work with less, the goal is always to achieve more with more (or at least the same). Achieving “the same with less” at a macroeconomic level is actually impossible. Because if you reduce your inputs, you are by definition reducing demand for someone else’s outputs, leading to ultimately less demand for your outputs, i.e. a recession. The “way out” is for the increasing output to be more ecological harvested, less polluting, and more recyclable than before.
BjoernKW 7y ago
> How do you link GDP growth and population growth? GDP growth and population growth are inherently linked: In order to provide sufficient resources for a growing population resource production has to increase, either by more energy input or by more efficient production. If on the other hand population growth suddenly stopped and consumption per capita remained the same the only way for GDP to continue to grow would be to increase output per unit of work (i.e. the GDP/NRJ term from article). > Why would an ever growing population even be a goal? It's not as if someone purposefully sets this as a goal. Population growth given sufficient resources up to a point seems to be a naturally occurring phenomenon. If on the other hand we decide to deliberately constrain the availability of resources this in turn means putting a constraint on population growth as well. Ultimately, this means deciding who gets to live and who doesn't. If for whatever reason population growth stops naturally there's no need to establish growth as a goal for its own sake. However, artificially constraining growth seems inhumane to me. I can't remember the exact quote but somewhere in the epilogue of the first Dune novel Frank Herbert has planetary ecologist Liet Kynes say (or rather write because he's penning guidelines for educating the Fremen) something along the lines of: "Life is its own tool for ever more efficiently making use of the energy available within a system." In my opinion, that's a profound insight.

mrpopo 7y ago

> I suggest that instead of obsessing with the NRJ/POP term in the equation we focus on GDP/NRJ instead. That's what absolutely everyone has been doing for the past 70 years. What happens usually when energy efficiency is called the rebound effect. We will create more with as much energy, not create as much with less energy. Also, note that creating as much with less energy will limit GDP growth as well, as the GDP is based on creation of goods and services.

martythemaniak 7y ago

I guess we should give some props to Malthus - he may actually have the single most successful/impactful Zombie Idea (per Krugman's definition) in the history of the world. It's rather telling that even a place like Hacker News has trouble understanding what technology is, what it has done and what it can do.

wazoox 7y ago

"There have always been paradigm shifts, therefore there will be more", isn't that the very definition of wishful thinking? Jancovici's proposal isn't to artificially limit growth, it's to do realistic accounting. When you pull out a barrel of oil from the ground, you gain something (in GDP, etc) but you also lose something. If you never account for the losses in biodiversity, resources, clean water, etc then you can pretend you're "growing" while actually having net losses accumulating.

BjoernKW 7y ago
> "There have always been paradigm shifts, therefore there will be more", isn't that the very definition of wishful thinking? It'd be wishful thinking if there was no evidence to back up that claim. However, these paradigm shifts have happened in the past: hunter-gatherer society -> nomadism -> husbandry -> agriculture -> crop rotation -> industrialisation -> information age / green revolution -> digitalisation Extrapolating from that there's no reason to assume this will suddenly end. I'm in favour of doing realistic accounting. However, the original title was something along the lines of "In order to reduce energy consumption we need to give up growth.", which turns Jancovici's conclusion on its head. Not taking into account or neglecting the GDP/NRJ part of the equation and solely focussing on NRJ/POP is tantamount to falling for the same defeatist Malthusian fallacy that we're doomed anyway.
- wazoox 7y ago
  > It'd be wishful thinking if there was no evidence to back up that claim. Sorry but no, this is a hint at best. This not evidence. Everything comes to an end, eventually. Regarding the GDP/NRJ ratio: the coupling is somewhat less strong, however we're far from the strong negative coupling that would be necessary for our coming energy landscape. As Jancovici said (in this article or another), we always went from an energy source to a better one ( hunting to agriculture; muscles to wind to coal to oil); we never experienced going back to less concentrated ones.