Not caring to think before he writes,
[email protected] (Chalo) wrote:
>
[email protected] (gwhite) wrote:
> > (Chalo) wrote:
> >
> > > Do you suppose it is merely coincidental that Western
> > > Europeans, who share a similar standard of living to
> > > Americans but who drive fewer and not-so-gluttonous
> > > cars, also consume much less energy per capita?
> >
> > If they can't afford as much energy, they are hardly
> > "equal."
>
> That's a perfect example of the flaws in your assessment
> of the situation: the assumption that whomever burns up
> the most BTUs of fossil fuels wins the standard-of-living
> race. It just ain't so!
I don't define it as a "race." The US has a higher GDP/W
than France or Germany. IOW, the US is more efficient. Using
certain "Western Europeans" as examples may not be such a
good idea.
Whenever you spend or invest money, that transfer will
represent an energy expenditure. So the idea is simply that
an ability to purchase more means "better off." My purpose
was not to ascribe value judgements, as it is for you. Since
you do have value judgements, you really need "the answer"
to come out in a way that reinforces your beliefs.
If you need to go to the hospital, or just like eating out,
it is nice to be able to afford more. It is that simple.
> Anyone who would suggest that Americans live better than
> French, for instance, would have to be wildly
> delusional. The fact that we consume a lot more useless
> **** is one of the reasons we _don't_ live as well as
> the French, in fact.
Again, we have another arbiter of what is "useless" and what
is not. I don't really care about your value judgements
because I don't value them, hah hah.
> Most anyone who has lived both places will tell you so.
Um, no.
> Any economics, let alone philosophy, that chooses some
> arbitrary unitby which to quantify a way of life, and more
> is then flatly assumes better, is operating under a
> fallacy of its own.
Holy ****! Even dieoff.org, for which you must hold great
love, says you're off:
"There is NO substitute for energy. Although the economy
treats energy just like any other resource, it is NOT like
any other resource. Energy is the precondition for ALL other
resources..." (
http://dieoff.org/page65.htm)
Energy is not an "arbitrary unit" in the context of my
discussion. It is not like anything else. It's the only
thing that makes things move. Sure, when you buy your pretty
new coffee cup you don't buy it because of it the energy
content it represents, but that *is* what it represents for
the context of this discussion. Nothing happens without
energy -- no matter how much you wish it isn't true, it is.
Not a McDonalds hamburger and not brain surgery can happen
without energy. Not even barrister Beattie can post to rbt
without energy.
> Poverty sucks, to be sure, but rampant overconsumption in
> American society has cultivated a kind of cultural poverty
> all its own. The rest of the world knows what I'm talking
> about, even if you don't.
What a load: "cultural poverty." In any case, what you want
to be is dictator: to judge for all what is "right" and
dictate that your will be done. Dictators don't care about
poor people, so I see a familiar pattern in you, even in
your casual comments. How do you live with yourself?
Read this:
5. Conclusions
Many economists of all persuasions, whether pro
environmentalist or otherwise, seem united in their
conviction that improving energy efficiency through
technological means, will by lowering the implicit price,
result in increased, not decreased, energy use. This
conviction is the result of over a century - since Jevons
in the 1860s - of theoretical discussion on resource use,
and empirical evidence from historic analysis of energy
use in economies.
At the microlevel energy efficiency improvements do
result in reduced energy consumption, though there is a
'rebound effect'. However simply aggregating identifiable
savings at the microlevel - even after taking account of
the rebound - fails to take into account many
macroeconomic factors. For example there is the effect of
new consumers previously priced out of particular energy
services before they were made cheaper by higher energy
efficiency. The aggregate effect of the economic savings
from all individual consumers is to stimulate economic
growth (the income effect) and hence increase energy use.
Overall, macroeconomic analysis leads to the conclusion
that even if the economy is made more energy efficient
the eventual outcome is for it to use more energy.
There are number of ways to reduce consumption of fuels
likely to cause long term environmental damage, if that
is our goal. We could ban or regulate use of forms of
energy we find objectionable, like high sulphur coal or
orimulsion. We could ration some types of fuel either
directly or through the use of tradeable permits - as is
proposed for achieving greenhouse gas reduction targets
between nations. Or we could impose fuel or carbon taxes.
[Or if you love the French so much, you could copy them
and build nukes.]
However most governments are reluctant to introduce such
taxes, for fear of political unpopularity and damaging
national competitiveness. Instead there are plans in many
countries to deregulate national fuel industries and
bring about more competitive markets, which are likely to
result in lower energy prices, and greater energy
consumption.
The reluctance of governments, including our own, to
introduce politically unpopular measures to reduce
national energy consumption has led them to emphasize a
policy of energy efficiency achieved through
technological means - such as labelling, standards and
best practice schemes. However this paper argues that the
result of such a policy would instead be an increase in
energy consumption but also higher economic growth.
http://technology.open.ac.uk/eeru/staff/horace/kbpotl.htm
Read that last one again: "However this paper argues that
the result of such a policy would instead be an increase in
energy consumption but also higher economic growth."
Now where have you heard that one before? ;-)
