Saturday, March 01, 2008
Robert Bryce at Counterpunch
There's a great piece by Robert Bryce at Counterpunch describing recent research confirming that Jevons' paradox is real. Definitely worth the read. (I'm a little surprised by the venue, though.) I'll have to check out his book when I have the time- but given all I have to do in the next few months, it'll be awhile.
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It's interesting to compare Jevons Paradox on energy with Malthus’ Paradox on food. The later posits that given that population increases geometrically while food only arithmetically, the natural outcome is poverty. The former posits that an improvement in the efficiency of resource-use leads to an increase (rather than a decrease) in the use of that resource, and that energy depletion is also a natural outcome.
To date, Malthus’s paradox seems to have been resolved through technological progress,Similarly, Jevons’ energy paradox has a potential technological fix. It seems to me, however, that while both require technological progress, one should go all the way to a “mindset fix”, including changing, not just our industrial structure, but values systems, world view and attitudes to embrace these truths and just deal with them with the best tools at hand.
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