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Regarding the environment and humans decreasing the Earth's ability to sustain life, the tech community doesn't seem to pick up on the pattern that technology a
by spodek 5y ago
Regarding the environment and humans decreasing the Earth's ability to sustain life, the tech community doesn't seem to pick up on the pattern that technology augments the users' goals and values. As long as our culture values growth, extraction, externalizing costs, comfort, and convenience, technology that makes that system more efficient may decrease pollution in one element, but it makes the system more efficient. That is, we pollute and decrease Earth's ability to sustain life more efficiently.
When Watt made his steam engine, coal use went up. Uber was supposed to lower congestion and miles driven but they went up. We repeat the pattern over and over. The "father" of the Green Revolution, on winning the Nobel Prize said
> "The green revolution has won a temporary success in man’s war against hunger and deprivation; it has given man a breathing space. If fully implemented, the revolution can provide sufficient food for sustenance during the next three decades. But the frightening power of human reproduction must also be curbed; otherwise the success of the green revolution will be ephemeral only.
> Most people still fail to comprehend the magnitude and menace of the “Population Monster”. . . Since man is potentially a rational being, however, I am confident that within the next two decades he will recognize the self-destructive course he steers along the road of irresponsible population growth…"
He understood the value of technology as well as anyone in theory and practice. He recognized that we have to change our values from growth to enjoying what we have, from externalizing costs to responsibility, and so on or technology will keep exacerbating and augmenting our problems. That pattern includes nuclear, electric vehicles, and space travel. They may solve local problems, but they exacerbate the systemic effect. Electric vehicles, for example, make sense as a tactic under the strategy of reducing vehicles. Nuclear makes sense only as a tactic under the strategy of lowering power consumption. But we keep valuing producing more cars and energy.
This community seems over and over again to miss the systemic and unintended side effects. If we had clean fusion under our current values, we wouldn't live as we do today only cleaner. We would grow again until we hit more limits and had to live again under scarcity or natural calamity. Borlaug worked the second half his career to help people see the consequences of helping solve only part of our system but not the system.
If we have to stop growing at some point, at least acknowledging the laws of thermodynamics, the sooner we do it, with the smaller number of people, the more abundance we can live with. The more people we have, the harder to limit ourselves. If we don't, nature will, as we all know.
- wfn 5y agoYup, very much agree. > If we don't, nature will, as we all know. In a way, it's already happened, it's just that there is a delay effect and it takes time for things to... unravel ("the future is already here - it's just not evenly distributed yet") I recommend this lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WRojM9_uAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WRojM9_uAI by Pablo Servigne (agricultural engineer, PhD in ethology and behaviour of complex systems). I'd say we've basically known since at least https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth (but in many ways much earlier than that) and have simply been in denial. Yes we adapt and leverage technology and innovation, but there are rather hard time limits and we've exhausted our window quite some time ago. The correction (to use a friendly word) will be very painful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WRojM9_uAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WRojM9_uAI
- narrator 5y agoThe more efficiently a resource is used, the more of it will be used. This is known as Jevon's Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
- spodek 5y agoUnless we choose not to use it. Our culture values growth and extraction. Other cultures have lived far longer than the period from the Industrial Revolution until now, often with higher marks of health, longevity, abundance, and prosperity without lowering their environments' ability to sustain life. Only very recently did our lifespans pass typical ones for other cultures, but in the US they're already dropping again. We sometimes do so protect. We have national parks and protect endangered species, for example. We can do plenty more. Jevon's Paradox and rebound effects don't have to happen.
- Robotbeat 5y agoJevons Paradox is often misunderstood and misapplied. Improving efficiency of coal burning and extraction can increase use of coal, especially if no alternative exists and it is the bottleneck for economic development. But if you develop a more efficient technology that doesn’t burn coal, it’s not going to automatically mean more coal will be used. Natural gas, wind, and solar have all increased in absolute terms in the last two decades in the US while coal burning has halved in absolute terms, reducing overall absolute grid emissions in the US. Anyway, just wanted to point that out. (But I will say Jevons Paradox is a good argument against just relying on improved internal combustion engine efficiency in hybrid cars and buses vs using another energy source for transportation entirely, like renewable and nuclear electricity for trains, electric buses and electric cars.)