[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Monte', 'C')an we afford cost-saving energy efficiency?
This is the question posed by the ecological economists Mathias Wackernagel and William Rees. They write (1997):

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he answer is 'yes' only if efficiency gains are taxed away or otherwise removed from further economic circulation. Preferably they should be captured for reinvestment in natural capital rehabilitation.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', ' ')I don't understand your interpretation Monte. The quote clearly states that Jevons paradox can be bypassed if you prevent the price from dropping.

That is possible by taxation.

[CrudeAwakening]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '
')Since I make physical objects for a living, I don't understand the "service economy." I don't understand how there can be an entire economy based on not actually doing or making anything.

[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')ven if it shows a gain, what happens to the money that is spent on insulation and other efficiency measures? When the contractor is paid, does it he spend it on further conservation measures, or does he buy a new Hummer?

If he spends it on a Hummer, then you are back to square one.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', ' ')
Taxation does not equal to killing the economy, that is a corporate fairytale. A fairytale that has been told so many times and with so much persuasion that unfortunately those who actually strive for sustainability are starting to believe it.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')ven if it shows a gain, what happens to the money that is spent on insulation and other efficiency measures? When the contractor is paid, does it he spend it on further conservation measures, or does he buy a new Hummer?

If he spends it on a Hummer, then you are back to square one.

[smiley]

Monte,

- What you cal a solution (powerdown) I call the problem
- What you call our goal (destroying the economy) I call my greatest fear.

The difference between you and me is that you want to solve humans problems altogether, I don't. Let me be frank with you.

The point for me is the following. Within now and say 5 years the oil production will start its inevitable slide downhill. That is a problem for me. I've worked very hard to get where I'm now. I am happily married, have a nice bunch of friends, have an interesting job, have a good place to call home. I have a lot to loose.

I don't mind giving up a lot of things. Most of my friends say I have a Spartan lifestyle already. I certainly have an energy and environmentally conscious lifestyle. But what I do not and will not compromise on is happiness.

Now some say you can be happy when you're poor (I tried it and it didn't work), some say that you even can find happiness in a war (but that's baloney). Happiness is easiest found in a period of stability, not during a recession, depression or worse.

A solution for me is something which is able to bring relative stability for the next 50 years. After that I'm dead and it is someone else's problem.

Call it selfish, I don't care. All I want, a quiet life and maybe leave this world a little better place than when I started off.

Bioethanol, hydrogen and all that Cornucopian crap will not make it that long. We will hit the wall just as hard, maybe even harder a few years from now. Conservation and efficiency increases can make the distance. From my perspective these are thus perfectly viable solutions.

In the long term they are probably not. But then again. If you want to solve all the worlds problems we should probably commit mass suicide anyway.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', 'M')onte,

- What you cal a solution (powerdown) I call the problem

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', ' ')A solution for me is something which is able to bring relative stability for the next 50 years. After that I'm dead and it is someone else's problem.

Call it selfish, I don't care. All I want, a quiet life and maybe leave this world a little better place than when I started off.

[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('concerend', 'P')owerdown is NOT poweroff. It's essentially using less energy. Being poor is a material comparison game, designed to keep you working so you are comparitavely richer than others you are aware of.

[Ludi]

I've been powering down for a couple years now. I'm reducing my need to earn by living frugally, using less power, eating homegrown food. I don't see it as suffering or a problem. I know I have a long way to go, but if given a long enough period of transition ( a few more years), suffering should be reduced. The main drawback I see for myself personally is a shorter life expectancy. My grandmother lived to 102. I don't expect to live that long, due to health problems that may not be treatable in a powerdown scenario.

Sudden forced powerdown would cause suffering. Merely powering down need not cause suffering. But if most folks see any kind of powerdown as "the problem" we're far more likely to end up with a sudden forced powerdown ("power off"). There's no way to avoid an eventual powerdown. Flailing around looking to avoid it will just makes things much worse. Like Monte's living beyond one's means analogy. One can choose to live within one's means and phase out one's debts, or one can just keep spending money one doesn't have and then get thrown onto the street or in debtors' prison. Personally, I'd rather live within my means, to the best of my ability.

[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')'ve been powering down for a couple years now. I'm reducing my need to earn by living frugally, using less power, eating homegrown food. I don't see it as suffering or a problem. I know I have a long way to go, but if given a long enough period of transition ( a few more years), suffering should be reduced. The main drawback I see for myself personally is a shorter life expectancy. My grandmother lived to 102. I don't expect to live that long, due to health problems that may not be treatable in a powerdown scenario.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', '
')
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('concerned', 'T')here is a difference between destroying the economy and reforming how it operates.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', '
')But imagine that when you go to the hospital and find out that the only tools available are a hacksaw and a bottle of rum.

This is the kind of powerdown some are suggesting.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', '
')But imagine that when you go to the hospital and find out that the only tools available are a hacksaw and a bottle of rum.

This is the kind of powerdown some are suggesting.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', '
')But imagine that when you go to the hospital and find out that the only tools available are a hacksaw and a bottle of rum.

[Jenab6]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'I')n our current world, lowering the amount we consume will put someone out of work. Much of our consumption, while wanton and unecessary, employs millions.

[Jenab6]

Here's an appropriate quote that I found in The Lightning and the Sun

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Savitri Devi', 'T')hat resigned submission to the terrible law of decay—that acceptance of the bondage of time by creatures who dimly feel that they could be free from it, but who find it hard to try to free themselves; who know beforehand that they would never succeed, even if they did try—is at the bottom of that incurable unhappiness of man, deplored again and again in the Greek tragedies, and long before these were written. Man is unhappy because he knows, because he feels, in general, that the world in which he lives and of which he is a part, is not what it should be, what it could be. He cannot wholeheartedly accept that world as his—specially not accept the fact that it is going from bad to worse—and be glad. However much he may try to be a "realist" and snatch from destiny whatever he can, when he can, still an invincible yearning for the better remains at the bottom of his heart. He cannot, in general, will the world as it is.

But a few people, as rare as the liberated ones, for whom time does not exist, and perhaps rarer, can and do. These are the most thorough, the most mercilessly effective agents of the death forces on earth: supremely intelligent, and sometimes extraordinarily farsighted; always unscrupulous to the utmost; working without hesitation and without remorse in the sense of the downward process of history and, whether they can see or not as far as that, for its logical conclusion: the annihilation of man and of all life.

Naturally, they do not always see as far as that. But when they do, still they do not care. Since the law of time is what it is, and since the end must come, it is just as well that they should draw all the profit they possibly can from the process that is, anyhow, sooner or later, to bring about the end.

Since no one can re-create the primeval, lost paradise—no one but the wheel of time itself, after it has rolled its full course—then it is just as well that they, who can completely forget the distant vision, or who never had a glimpse of its dying glow; they, who can stifle in themselves the age old yearning for perfection, or rather, who never experienced it; it is just as well that they, I say, should squeeze out of the fleeing moment (whether minutes or years, it matters little) all the intense, immediate enjoyment they can, until the hour comes when they must die. It is just as well that they should leave their stamp upon the world, force generations to remember them, until the hour comes for the world to die. So they feel.

It makes little difference what suffering they might cause to men or other living creatures, by acting as they do. Both men and creatures are bound to suffer, anyhow. Just as well through them as through others, if that can forward the aims of these people. The aims of these people—of men within time, par excellence—are always selfish aims, even when, owing to their material magnitude and historical importance, they transcend immeasurably any one man's life, as they actually do, sometimes. For selfishness—the claim of the part to more place and to more meaning than is naturally allotted to it within the whole—is the very root of disintegration.

[weirdo27]

{merged by MQ}


I was reading some articles that the effects of declining oil production wont be devistating right away mostly due to the reason we have so much room to cut waste. This might cost jobs but atleast we will still have a lifestyle, and food and all that fun stuff. Than as we head farther down than things begin to get worse and worse.

[emersonbiggins]

You should do a search for threads on this very topic - they're numerous. Basically, cutting the waste out of the economy is akin to cutting the economy out altogether. One man's waste: florists, stylists, hoteliers, real estate agents, insurance salesmen, all add up to jobs lost in the larger economy. Sure, it's waste and, sure, it should be cut before we all starve, but there's no real core to pare the economy back to - we've shipped that to China on a few thousand barges and traded it for the awesome service™ (read: waste) economy.