Unstable societies and the canary in the tar sands

[wlach]

Avery just posted a pretty interesting article comparing the cultural institutions of the United States with those of France. The conclusion that he draws is that the states is an "unstable" society while France is a "flow" society. While I haven't spent enough time in Europe to really comment on the latter (although I suspect he may be somewhat

Comments

[pphaneuf]

From my recent visit in Danmark, and pondering energy issues, I'm afraid the best thing to do just seems to be "bloody use less of it". Just about all the ways to generate energy (including the 17%+ of "alternative energy" electricity in Danmark) has some pretty solid negative impact.

Oh well.

[wlach]

Sounds like a fine idea, but how do you generate economic growth without increasing the input of energy? Our assumptions of how society should operate go straight out the window.

Maybe some miracle form of energy with a better EROI than petroleum will come down the pipe to save us all, but I'm not betting on it.

[pphaneuf]

It would necessarily require improving efficiency, of course, which I suppose requires changing some assumptions of how society should operate. Yes, urban centers should be denser, not more dispersed. You can produce the same amount of light with a fluorescent lightbulb with only a fraction of a tungsten lightbulb. In a way, a business that fail can be a saving, as the market declared it to be spurious, and it can now finally stop wasting resources trying to do something nobody wants. With a more dense population and a good public transport system, unskilled workers changing job within a city isn't as much of a problem.

I'm not sure that economic growth necessarily requires more energy. Creation of wealth isn't a zero-sum game, wealth can be created from almost none (including energy), in some cases. Admittedly, this isn't quite the common case.

[wlach]

I don't have the source handy right now, but it's documented that the energy intensity of our societies has been going steadily down for the last 20 years or so (that is to say, the amount of energy needed to produce a unit of GDP). Nonetheless, our consumption of energy has continued to increase. This is Jevon's Paradox on a large scale: gains in efficiency are lost because consumption of resources just increases along with it.

With regard to your second point (creation of wealth isn't a zero-sum game and wealth can be created from almost nothing), I think that depends on how you define wealth. :) The cheap Chinese goods we intellectual property workers take for granted certainly weren't produced from "almost nothing". You can't wear or eat computer code and patents...

[pphaneuf]

I am only guessing, but I have a feeling that this may be due to the resource not actually becoming scarcer. Being generally more efficient then just means that it's more profitable to use. But the efficiency I'm talking about is more about making up for resources becoming more scarce. With the kind of populations we have, land to live on should be expensive, as it should be more dedicated to agriculture, to feed all those people. Electricity is damaging the environment, and this damage has a cost that is not fully transferred to the end-users, and if it were, we would be much more careful with its usage. A car is a luxury, why is everyone and their brother going around in one? All that I would prefer less coercion from above, I suppose these are some things that government could intervene into

[wlach]

I love your ideas, but I think what you're talking about would be seen as a reduction in the standard of living by most people in the Western world. Using resources as you suggest would definitely result in a reduction of the GDP. As I suggest in my original post, I'm pretty sure we're going to be forced into this situation, whether we like it or not, but I don't think the transition will be as orderly or natural as you or I would like.

On a completely different note, I think these sorts of problems (issues of energy and resource utilization) are quite amenable to analysis using computer technology. I'll probably write more about that later in the week.

[pphaneuf]

Yeah, I certainly agree that there would have to be a reduction in the standard of living, but this might not be entirely related to the GDP. Denmark, while a bit of an extreme, uses a bit less than 6 MW/h per inhabitant, and the US is using more than 12 MW/h per inhabitant, while still having a higher GDP per capita than the US (they're not exactly chock-full of natural resources, they even have "Christmas trees" listed as one of their main exports on their Wikipedia page!). They also have an overwhelming large middle-class (very little poverty and not too many rich people), are apparently happier, get laid more and are generally hotter. ;-)

But you're right, it'll eventually come to some situation that reduces the standard of living, but I'd much prefer it to be because we tuned our consumption than because we're virtually run out (maybe it'll just become too expensive for most people) of a number of resources. And while it might not look exactly like Mad Max, it probably won't be too pleasant.

Gots a question

[pphaneuf]

Hey, I have a question about the tar sands project in alberta. Do you think it's sustainable and if so why? It'd be a great help if you could explain why.