5 ms·

It's not the watch, it's your house... and the roads, sewer, power etc. It's the $$$s! Furthermore, don't forget your investments! Those are earning money BECA

by kurthr 4y ago

It's not the watch, it's your house... and the roads, sewer, power etc. It's the $$$s! Furthermore, don't forget your investments! Those are earning money BECAUSE they are consuming power. The workers build more houses, drive more cars, and consume more power to go on vacation to Tahiti. Profit is reinvested to consume more power. You own/rent it, you're responsible.

perrygeo 4y ago
Yep, the flow of money is almost perfectly correlated with flows of energy and material. Fuel/material consumption and GDP are basically measuring the same thing ("useful work accomplished") with a different quantitative lens.
HPsquared 4y ago
On the investments, isn't that double counting? The people buying the products/services are counted once, then the owners of the factory (etc.) are counted for the same energy a second time?
- H8crilA 4y ago
  Yeah. Also, energy is very very similar to money (spending power). Both represent the ability to transform your environment. This connects to the formula for estimating "net worth of a country": one has to add up net worths of just people and non-profits (and govt infrastructure), because everything else is 100% owned.
- kurthr 4y ago
  Well, who are the owners of the factory (not the products they generate), because the infrastructure energy cost (concrete, aluminum, steel, semiconductors) is huge? Are we just counting the people... and if we're counting corporations, shouldn't it be the people who own those corporations. Aren't stocks ownership? Debt is a bit more complex since that lien could be double counted (if it was ever all paid off), but in most cases more money just gets created by banks and few growing companies lower their debt burden over time when you count commercial paper.
  - _Algernon_ 4y ago
    Infrastructure and other energy use would be counted as part of the product in the form of embodied energy[1] of the end product. This isn't about distributing blame. It's about getting average energy use per person to <2000W on a societal level. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_energy
    - kurthr 4y ago
      It's not about blame. Stock/debt ownership isn't just an opportunity it's also a responsibility. You own the means of production. The customers do not. If you want to embed the capital costs (and not just the marginal costs of production) into products you have a much bigger amortization problem. Do you do it on the first sale so the first Tesla generates a billion metric tons of carbon, the first 10 years, the first million, retroactively? What about companies that never sell a product, but consume billions of $$ in R&D? Do the employees own that, or the owners, or society as a whole?
      - s1artibartfast 4y ago
        you run into the same amortization problem with the means of production. When and to whom is the imbedded energy cost assigned? Does it follow each stock sale? Does some of the energy stay with someone if they trade a stock for a profit? Is it continuously updated in real time as more energy is consumed by the company? If you can figure all of that out for the owner, you can certainly recalculate the carbon footprint of a tesla in real time. In my opinion, carbon footprint follows the inventory. It is on your books until someone buys the good or service.
        kurthr 4y ago
        No amortization problem, it follows the ownership/stock sale, just like your house or your car, a gallon of gasoline, or anything else you buy/sell. So when you sell your stock the embedded value/energy goes with it. If you received dividends, and spent it then that probably had some embedded energy too. If you have money in the bank, then that earns interest which you'll spend/save, and if you own Gov bonds then you own part of the government, which has spent lots directly on concrete and oil. None of that concrete is free (you could argue they should get credits for all the un-cut trees grown on federal land though). Even donations to charity have carbon footprint. Imagine you give to a charity that pays gas bills for poor people. Those people didn't buy that oil/gas. The one giving to charity did. You earn money, you spend money, you save money, you give away money... that money gets spent on objects with embedded carbon. Unless you want to say that corporations get a free pass, or the government gets a free pass, or banks get a free pass, or wealthy people get a free pass. Just like taxes... maybe the monarchy gets a free pass? Now there's still a way to game it, which is to have your company pay for everything. Just like cheating on your taxes, if you have no income and everything is held in a corp, then whoever holds the corp owns your carbon production.

by kurthr 4y ago

perrygeo 4y ago

Yep, the flow of money is almost perfectly correlated with flows of energy and material. Fuel/material consumption and GDP are basically measuring the same thing ("useful work accomplished") with a different quantitative lens.

HPsquared 4y ago

On the investments, isn't that double counting? The people buying the products/services are counted once, then the owners of the factory (etc.) are counted for the same energy a second time?

H8crilA 4y ago
Yeah. Also, energy is very very similar to money (spending power). Both represent the ability to transform your environment. This connects to the formula for estimating "net worth of a country": one has to add up net worths of just people and non-profits (and govt infrastructure), because everything else is 100% owned.
kurthr 4y ago
Well, who are the owners of the factory (not the products they generate), because the infrastructure energy cost (concrete, aluminum, steel, semiconductors) is huge? Are we just counting the people... and if we're counting corporations, shouldn't it be the people who own those corporations. Aren't stocks ownership? Debt is a bit more complex since that lien could be double counted (if it was ever all paid off), but in most cases more money just gets created by banks and few growing companies lower their debt burden over time when you count commercial paper.
- _Algernon_ 4y ago
  Infrastructure and other energy use would be counted as part of the product in the form of embodied energy[1] of the end product. This isn't about distributing blame. It's about getting average energy use per person to <2000W on a societal level. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_energy
  - kurthr 4y ago
    It's not about blame. Stock/debt ownership isn't just an opportunity it's also a responsibility. You own the means of production. The customers do not. If you want to embed the capital costs (and not just the marginal costs of production) into products you have a much bigger amortization problem. Do you do it on the first sale so the first Tesla generates a billion metric tons of carbon, the first 10 years, the first million, retroactively? What about companies that never sell a product, but consume billions of $$ in R&D? Do the employees own that, or the owners, or society as a whole?
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      you run into the same amortization problem with the means of production. When and to whom is the imbedded energy cost assigned? Does it follow each stock sale? Does some of the energy stay with someone if they trade a stock for a profit? Is it continuously updated in real time as more energy is consumed by the company? If you can figure all of that out for the owner, you can certainly recalculate the carbon footprint of a tesla in real time. In my opinion, carbon footprint follows the inventory. It is on your books until someone buys the good or service.
      - kurthr 4y ago
        No amortization problem, it follows the ownership/stock sale, just like your house or your car, a gallon of gasoline, or anything else you buy/sell. So when you sell your stock the embedded value/energy goes with it. If you received dividends, and spent it then that probably had some embedded energy too. If you have money in the bank, then that earns interest which you'll spend/save, and if you own Gov bonds then you own part of the government, which has spent lots directly on concrete and oil. None of that concrete is free (you could argue they should get credits for all the un-cut trees grown on federal land though). Even donations to charity have carbon footprint. Imagine you give to a charity that pays gas bills for poor people. Those people didn't buy that oil/gas. The one giving to charity did. You earn money, you spend money, you save money, you give away money... that money gets spent on objects with embedded carbon. Unless you want to say that corporations get a free pass, or the government gets a free pass, or banks get a free pass, or wealthy people get a free pass. Just like taxes... maybe the monarchy gets a free pass? Now there's still a way to game it, which is to have your company pay for everything. Just like cheating on your taxes, if you have no income and everything is held in a corp, then whoever holds the corp owns your carbon production.