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Alright, I’ve got one that I don't see on your list, it’s been on my mind for years. What about the goldfish problem? Goldfish grow to fit their containers. Ke

Alright, I’ve got one that I don't see on your list, it’s been on my mind for years. What about the goldfish problem? Goldfish grow to fit their containers. Keep a little 1-inch goldfish in a bowl, it’ll stay that size. Toss it in a koi pond and in no time you’ll have something approaching the size of a housecat. People are like this. A family might be scratching by on $40k/year. Dad gets some windfall or promotion and is making $60k/year. So did he finish out the year in the same house with $20k in the bank? Of course not, he’s paying for all the clothes and goods that he couldn’t afford before. Ten years later he’s gotten promoted to making $120k/year. Now is there money in the bank, or are they living in a bigger house and driving a nicer car? This is what worries me about any climate plan that is only based on clean energy. If driving, for example, gets cleaner, do we use 50% less petroleum, or keep burning the same amount of petroleum on different projects? (And what about all the non-tracked pollution caused by tire wear?) This problem is even more stark when people talk about atmospheric carbon capture. If we're emitting X tons of carbon per year, and recapture Y tons, will we continue to emit X, or start emitting X + Y? None of this is reason not to pursue renewables and electrification, but I think it’s inescapable that any "primary solution" has to be a reduction in consumption.

oezi 5y ago
This is all fine as long as all externalities are included in the price of consumption. Currently burning fossils is just way too cheap for the damage it does.
- pyrale 5y ago
  > This is all fine as long as all externalities are included in the price of consumption. Just like a software team scaling a product is going to discover new scale issues, we discover new externalities on a regular basis. Hoping that we can discover all externalities ahead of time and price them is an impossible objective.
edhelas 5y ago
Big +1 on that one. France goal to meet Paris agreement is actually to reduce by ~5% per year ALL energy consumption. -5% is roughly what we had with 3 lockdowns in 2020. So it's basically a COVID added to a COVID each year, for 30 years. That's no matter what you do in your actual energy deployment and investment.
pjc50 5y ago
In the context of energy, this is known as the "Jevons paradox": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
jl6 5y ago
It’s a great question, but if resources are genuinely clean, ethical and renewable, is it a problem to consume them? Perhaps the question is how to determine whether the things we consume genuinely are clean, ethical and renewable or not.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  The issue is that nothing is really cost free. Windfarms are better for the environment than alternatives, but they still have a significant impact. And that will increase if the best (low impact) sites get used up, and we still need to find space for more. I think reduction in consumption has to be part of the solution too.
zardo 5y ago
> Keep a little 1-inch goldfish in a bowl, it’ll stay that size. In much the same way that keeping a puppy in a tiny kennel full of it's own filth will stunt it's growth. https://www.tfhmagazine.com/articles/freshwater/goldfish-myths-debunked https://www.tfhmagazine.com/articles/freshwater/goldfish-myt...

oezi 5y ago

This is all fine as long as all externalities are included in the price of consumption. Currently burning fossils is just way too cheap for the damage it does.

pyrale 5y ago
> This is all fine as long as all externalities are included in the price of consumption. Just like a software team scaling a product is going to discover new scale issues, we discover new externalities on a regular basis. Hoping that we can discover all externalities ahead of time and price them is an impossible objective.

edhelas 5y ago

Big +1 on that one. France goal to meet Paris agreement is actually to reduce by ~5% per year ALL energy consumption. -5% is roughly what we had with 3 lockdowns in 2020. So it's basically a COVID added to a COVID each year, for 30 years. That's no matter what you do in your actual energy deployment and investment.

pjc50 5y ago

In the context of energy, this is known as the "Jevons paradox": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

jl6 5y ago

It’s a great question, but if resources are genuinely clean, ethical and renewable, is it a problem to consume them? Perhaps the question is how to determine whether the things we consume genuinely are clean, ethical and renewable or not.

nicoburns 5y ago
The issue is that nothing is really cost free. Windfarms are better for the environment than alternatives, but they still have a significant impact. And that will increase if the best (low impact) sites get used up, and we still need to find space for more. I think reduction in consumption has to be part of the solution too.

zardo 5y ago

> Keep a little 1-inch goldfish in a bowl, it’ll stay that size. In much the same way that keeping a puppy in a tiny kennel full of it's own filth will stunt it's growth. https://www.tfhmagazine.com/articles/freshwater/goldfish-myths-debunked https://www.tfhmagazine.com/articles/freshwater/goldfish-myt...