How then, do we move backwards? How does a society, with most of the people having no clue of future events, move from being dependent on a vast and intertwined network of goods and services produced by the indigenous people of whereever, to a local resource and renewable energy based society, and do so in the timeframe available (20-30 years using the most liberal extimates, 10-20 with resonable estimates, 5-10 with worst case scenarios), all the while prices on everything increasing, world politics getting more militaristic, governments continuously reducing civil liberties, shortages of goods on the market and weather patterns resembling bad Hollywood movies?
Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 12:51 pm Post subject: Re: Jevons Paradox - Death by conservation
Aaron wrote:
In fact, your argument supports the idea that the only significant reduction in consumption will come at gun-point, so to speak.
This exposes the myth of conservation as it applies to fungible commodities like energy. No reductions via conservation are possible, & only scarcity will actually lower consumption.
There's a very interesting and misunderstood series of corollaries to this, Aaron. Here's what I see:
- Most "production" (even for essentials such as food/water/shelter) cannot be moved locally, because:
Specialized labor practices have almost completely removed such skills from the populace
Even those with the skills may not have the tools/energy required to use them
Local resources in arable regions (especially close to population centers) are typically the most degraded
- Therefore, instead of anticipating these problems and diverting resources locally, population will invest an even greater amount of money/time on procuring distant resources.
These are all a complicated way of saying what no one wants to admit:
Civilization (the establishment of communities of people whose demand for resources outstrips their ability to produce them locally) is completely, utterly unsustainable on any level.
Everyone dances around the topic, but this is it. Every human system breaks down in the end because it is contrary to nature, not in concert with it. _________________ Dismantle globally, renew locally!
Joined: May 26, 2008 Posts: 476 Location: Chicago, IL
Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 6:34 am Post subject: Re: Jevons Paradox - Death by conservation
jdumars wrote:
Most "production" cannot be moved locally, because:
Specialized labor practices have almost completely removed such skills from the populace
Even those with the skills may not have the tools/energy required to use them
Local resources in arable regions (especially close to population centers) are typically the most degraded
Hi, J. I beg to differ.
1. It takes 1-2 years to teach most specialized skills;
2. It takes 6-18 months to arrange for suficient tools and energy;
3. I plead ignorance. I don't know what you meant.
Among other factors, conservation is being defeated by the accessability of the transfer of goods (and people).
Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 4:47 pm Post subject: Re: Jevons Paradox - Death by conservation
I'm really enjoying this thread. Nice posts, gg3 and Aaron. While I don't have time to read everyone's, these two lead me to wonder quite a bit about the future of consumption in light of $4/gallon gas, hybrid vehicles, biodiesel, and a greater disparity in the distribution of wealth between the richest and the poorest.
I fear that we've let the balance of power reach a level whereupon we cannot live in concert with nature. The drive to produce profit over the drive toward moral good and sustainability looks insurmountable. We can throw examples of societies that "worked" at one another, or we can study those and try to make ours work. The point that I keep circling is, "We're all in it together."
When I asked a retired astronaut if he believed in extraterrestrials (a whole new fun topic!), his tongue was obviously tied. I probed further into his opinion of the fate of the human race, and he said, "All I know is that we have got to realize that we're all in this together. If we don't make it, we don't deserve to, and I'm ok with that. Someone else out there will make it by working collaboratively."
Given that our "situation" may be considerably worse than some thought (oceans absorbing less CO2, Arctic Circle disappearing much more rapidly, etc), when are we going to organize on a global level with any efficiency? I think I'm preaching to the choir, given that you folks are interested and putting the effort down to discussion. We've done this before, when war was imminent in our countries and our livelihoods were at stake. Let's educate as best we can, bring others up to speed, and formulate and implement the same type of rapid planning as we've done time after time before. I feel that capitalism may not be compatible with such a movement, but I certainly don't want to be packed away for thinking like a "crazy commie." We have to keep sustainability and conservation very high on the priority list for everyone on this planet...
Haha, who wants to start? Thanks for reading my little rant.
Joined: May 28, 2008 Posts: 23 Location: Scandinavia
Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 4:24 pm Post subject: Re: THE Jevons Paradox Thread
Wow, this is a long thread, but one of the most interesting one's here on PO.com, in my opinion. I'm reading through the whole thing and I'm only at page 16!
I actually had my first "Oh! I really GET IT!" moment in nearly a year.
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 3:01 pm Post subject: Re: Jevons Paradox - Death by conservation
gg3 wrote:
Nature is going to force our hand whether we like it or not: there will be an "economic contraction" because the number of humans on this planet will drop off to about 1 - 2 billion within the next century or at most two centuries. It's going to be an ugly ride down the slippery slope.
In the face of this, there is a darwinian advantage for those who have learned to live well with fewer resources.
In the past, "be fruitful and multiply" conferred an advantage. In the future, "be frugal and subtract" will confer the advantage.
In the head to head battle between "multiply" and "contract" as adaptive strategies, long term scenarios present a mixed picture. Whereas "contraction" may help in some niche scenarios, the success of "multiplication" is proven to be highly effective. In an arena of contraction, multiplication via expansion and absorption could suit some groups and individuals very well. As these powers coalesce, greater realms of sophisticated services become efficient and possible. Consider that when going head to head with "multiplyists".
Lets take Kuntsler's World Made By Hand as a scenario. If you've read the book, it makes a fairly plausible argument that being fruitful (a producer of some kind in the eocnomic sense) and multiplying (by conscription or breeding or coagulation or merging, etc. and so forth) will be prominent characteristics of human society, as they always have been, and always be adaptable traits as far as human societies revolve around the values that these strategies are calibrated to exploit.
What I am suggesting is that economic contraction and expansion are not necessarily going to cause these features of human social organization to be obsolete.
Why could you not argue, in a contraction scenario, the diffusion of economic roles (jobs), the consolidation of organizations, or even the necessity of each.
Hermitage is not adaptable in a larger, social context (maybe the only rational context for human adaptation.) Cooperation, separation of skills and abilities, allow for higher efficiency. There will be redundancies in terms of individual's skills or abilities in the event of contraction are certainly likely, which will lower a person's economic or socially productive value relative to their consumption and displacement costs.
Its hard to understand your argument as necessarily valid in light of the kinds of low-energy intensity, high population dense scenarios like existed in China in the late 19th/early 20th centuries.
Our current bullshit economy could fractionate into an analagous system of intensive agriculture, low-energy labor, and so forth. Or it may not because of cultural features making this unlikely. At any rate, the example shows that improbable populations coupled with intensive Ag are possible, and can support Flinstones-like tech levels with considerable social and political sophistication... in the flux, the values of ruthless capitalism may still drive the overall socio-political arena.
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Thanks for reading my little rant.
