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> False. The US electricity consumption per person has fallen in the last decade. I don't have stats for the US, but for the world, the trend is growth until 2
by BiteCode_dev 4y ago
> False. The US electricity consumption per person has fallen in the last decade.
I don't have stats for the US, but for the world, the trend is growth until 2016:
https://imgur.com/a/WkaF60w https://imgur.com/a/WkaF60w
> It’s easy to assume people want to use endless amounts of energy, but consider once your AC gets things to a comfortable temperature lowering below that isn’t a benefit.
We invent new ways to consume power every day: video games, bitcoin, air sanitizer, food delivery...
> Hauling mangos long distances isn’t an inherent advantage from the trip, it simply allows them to be grown in a more efficient location
That's a good example: before, you just didn't eat mango if it didn't grow next to you, unless you had a lot of money.
> It’s easy to see a trend like people buying larger homes and assume it can continue forever, but if you look at billionaires you find they eventually find ever larger homes impractical
I consume more than my father, and he consumes more than my grandfather. The later didn't have a fridge when young, me, I can use a plane several times a year.
There is a huge margin between me and a billionnaire, and everybody wants to live like one.
- Retric 4y agoHere’s US electricity numbers, it’s flat from 2000 to 2008 and then dropped. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC?locations=US https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC?locat... > before, you just didn't eat mango if it didn't grow next to you, unless you had a lot of money. But that already happened, so now once mangoes are already being shipped the energy consumption is effectively capped. Which is my point you seem to be ignoring, you can’t extrapolate to endlessly increasing resources. Yes comparing a subsistence farmer with a billionaire you see a vast increase, but it’s a sub linear increase. What happens if everyone on earth has the lifestyle of a western billionaire, does resource consumption continue to increase or does it stall?
- BiteCode_dev 4y agoElectricity is not the only energy we consume, you have to see calories as a whole: transport, chemistry, making building, etc. Also, the US delegated most of the industry in Asia, and the energy consumption moved there. If you buy an iphone in the US, the energy used to create and ship that iphone doesn't appear on the US consumption, yet it is american. And of course, any local consumption is affecting the world as a whole.
- Retric 4y agoImports where a larger share of GDP on 2008 than 2019 so that doesn’t explain away the decrease in energy consumption over the last decade. US per capita oil consumption peaked in 1980 and recently total consumption has also fallen. Net fossil fuel use per capita is down significantly, which is why our CO2 emissions are dropping. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/carbon-co2-emissions https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/carb...