Living On a Carbon Budget: The End of Recreation As We Know It? 652
Lasrick writes Dawn Stover looks at unrealistic expectations and the distribution of limited energy resources: 'This is a question that should move from the fringes of the energy debate to its very heart. Economists and energy experts shy away from issues of equity and morality, but climate change and environmental justice are inseparable: It's impossible to talk intelligently about climate without discussing how to distribute limited energy resources. It's highly unlikely that the world can safely produce almost five times as much electricity by 2035 as it does now—which is what it would take to provide everyone with a circa-2010 American standard of living, according to a calculation by University of Colorado environmental studies professor Roger Pielke Jr. The sooner policy makers accept this reality, the sooner they can get to work on a global solution that meets everyone's needs. First, though, they need to understand the difference between needs and wants.' Not something most people even think about.
Lots of cheap carbon stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I bet computer gaming uses a lot less carbon than most pre-computer leisure activities.
Re:Lots of cheap carbon stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
Having procreative sex is one of the most carbon expensive things we can do.
Another conclusion you can draw from this article is that everyone could live very well if we would pare down the population to 2 billion.
It would only take 60 years to do this
Instead, we'll probably breed right up to the edge of capacity and then die in billions when something unexpected happens.
Tragic.
Still, I also think they are ignoring fusion and solar. But... adding heat energy to the planet at the rate it's been growing since the 1600's will also result in a planet with a temperature equal to boiling water in 500 years. I'm not talking about global warming- just the amount of energy used and released that has to be radiated off into space.
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Was going to mod you insightful, but thought you may like a link to Channel 4's "Utopia" [channel4.com] if you haven't heard of it, or watched it..
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I think the other guy's vision of the world is more like Logan's Run.
Re:Lots of cheap carbon stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with the general idea of reducing the population is that the people who consume the most would be the least likely to actually be impacted by such programs, it would probably eat from the middle out.
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Actually you only need to pear the population down by about 20 million. The top 2% of the world's population consume something like 90-95% of the resources, they are extremely expensive to have around. Remove them and everyone's standard of living jumps significantly.
Except standard of living = energy consumption (or nearly so). So removing the top 2% to increase someone else's standard of living doesn't solve the problem, it just changes who is causing it.
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7 Billion * 0.02 = 140 Million.
Other people have more eloquently responded to the rest of your argument.
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Your information is a little dated. These days, the top 10% uses as much as the bottom 90%. And it's actually fairly smooth down to the top 80% using as much as the bottom 20%.
That's the point of the article. Trying to get everyone into the top 20% is going to use a lot of power. It will also produce a lot of waste. And it would overwhelm every existing recreational area.
Here's some info and a graph..
http://www.olliesworld.com/pla... [olliesworld.com]
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I don't think it adds up.
I have a 10 year old fridge, costs us about .05 / day. A brand new, super efficient version cuts it down to .02 / day. But you have to take the financial and carbon hit of the new item. Yes, it will even out over a couple of years, but no it's not that big of a deal.
Reinsulating the house cost us about $15,000 and requires a ten year payback period.
A new truck would cost me $30K and up to jump from 12 mpg to 18 mpg - again, a multi year payback.
So these new energy efficient thing
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Where the heck did you get that list?
If you are talking per-capita, China and India don't belong. If you are talking overall, Canada doesn't belong.
Ok, I'll stop being lazy and look it up:
Top 5 per-capita energy consumers: [worldbank.org]
Iceland
Qatar
Trinidad and Tobago
Kuwait
Luxembourg
Top 5 overall energy consumers: [infoplease.com]
United States
China
Russia
Japan
India
And would it not be much more fair to look at per-capita numbers? i.e.
Re:Lots of cheap carbon stuff (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a good question. At first glance, per-captita consumption seems like the thing to focus on. Honestly, it's probably a good place to star; however, as that gap closes things get more subtle.
Consider 4 people, entitled to equal carbon emissions. They form 2 couples and the first decides to have 2 kids, while the second decides to have 6. Are the resulting families entitled to equal emissions, or is each person still entitled to equal emissions?
- It's unfair that children born into a large family should have less then those born into a small family
- It's also unfair that the actions of a couple choosing to have a large family should slice the environmental pie more thinly, reducing the share of those who chose to have a small family. Furthermore, the first option leads to the question of what's a fair baseline and basic human rights, while the second leads to a tragedy of the commons or lowest-common-denominator scenario.
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Instead, we'll probably breed right up to the edge of capacity and then die in billions when something unexpected happens.
It should not be considered unexpected.
Re:Lots of cheap carbon stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
Having procreative sex is one of the most carbon expensive things we can do
The big purple elephant in the room that everyone pretends to ignore.
Total Resources = Population x Individual Resources
Increase resources, reduce population, or reduce standard of living. It's a simple if difficult choice.
Individual people can be reasoned with. Unfortunately, groups of people are stupid and haven't progressed passed the roman gladiator spectator mobs. They'll demand more resources, defend religious teachings to have yet more kids, then wonder why they make less money each year.
(hourly median salary in the USA has been stagnant the last 40 years - actually, if you take into account productivity gains, it is half of what it was 4 decades ago.)
Re:Lots of cheap carbon stuff (Score:5, Informative)
You are ignoring the fact that people are a resource by itself.
The median salaries have been stagnant because corporations only pay as little to their employees as they can afford to and with both people in the house working and easy access to credit that's what you get.
The simple matter is all capital gains are being funneled at the top and worse of all instead of being used to fund new technology investments, raising their workers living standards, or whatever they merely sit on top of it.
Heard about the new Korean Prime Minister wanting to tax corporations sitting on piles of cash? It may start happening elsewhere too.
Re:Lots of cheap carbon stuff (Score:4, Funny)
You are ignoring the fact that people are a resource by itself.
Of course, they're the main ingredient in Soylent Green!
Re:Lots of cheap carbon stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lots of cheap carbon stuff (Score:4, Interesting)
You forgot "or increase technology." Surely you can agree that (for example) lighting your house with LEDs and doing your computing on something like a Haswell laptop is not a lower standard of living than lighting your house with gas lamps and doing your computing on a PDP-11... but it uses a whole lot less energy!
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"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it"
- Agent K (Men In Black)
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Increase resources, reduce population, or reduce standard of living. It's a simple if difficult choice.
The fertility rate in most western countries is close to 2, sometimes even below. Even in Bangladesh, where it was over 7 back in the 60s, it's down to near 2 now and still falling. We are good at getting developing countries to have fewer children, we just need to keep the effort up.
The world population is actually levelling off now. The fertility rate is nearing 2.0, which means no growth. The reason it is still rising is simply that people are living longer. The number of children in the world has stabil
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I think they are underestimating the low-carbon methods of producing electricity, but a factor of 5 increase in total output while reducing the carbon footprint - heck, even just keeping the footprint unchanged - is still a tall order. I would _love_ to see it happen.
As for 500 years from now, I figure either power usage will drop drastically as we go extinct or we'll be able to just move Earth out to about the orbit of Mars or Jupiter and drop the solar influx from 3e16W to something we can cope with. (As
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Right now we very roughly have about one billion people consuming about 80% of resources, six billions consuming the other 20%.
Democidal concepts are usually reserved for the poors. So let's imagine the "rich" population stays stable at one billion and the "poor" is reduced from six billions to one billion. The consumption in resources is reduced by only 17%, and defeating financial capitalism is already required in that scenario so that the economic activity is stagnating not growing.
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Interesting because if consumption wasn't reduced, the living standards of the rest of the world would improve a lot while the top wasn't impacted.
However, living standards (and consumption) are rising rapidly in India (1.3 billion) and china (1.4 billion).
Huge numbers of indians living on under $2 per day currently will probably be making $10 per day within a decade adjusted for inflation as they fix their infrastructure, education, and other issues combined with an inflow of wealth from the rest of the w
Re:Lots of cheap carbon stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead, we'll probably breed right up to the edge of capacity and then die in billions when something unexpected happens.
No, we won't. The developed world is already zero or negative in population growth. Even better, it appears that this fact is primarily caused not by a cultural decision to have fewer kids, but by economics. It appears that the primary determining factors in the growth rate of a society are health and wealth: If children are likely to survive, people don't feel the need to breed lots of replacements, so they have fewer kids and invest more in them. Also, if people are wealthy and have a high standard of living, then maintaining that standard of living for a small family is much easier than for a large family.
So, the developed world is already not growing in population -- much of Europe is negative, and the US is at zero growth when you remove immigration -- and the developing world is rapidly getting healthier and wealthier. In fact, the numbers show that we've already passed "peak child", meaning the year in which the most new babies are born, and the birth rate is already beginning to decline, globally. The population is still growing because right now the world's population is heavily weighted toward the young, with almost half of the population under 25. But with about two billion people being born in each new generation, and a lifespan of approximately five generations, it appears that we're on track to peak at about 10B people, before we start declining.
That's if we don't change anything, of course. What we know for sure is that things will change, but we don't know what.
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Which, I presume, is why GP specified "procreative sex."
(I agree with you that access to birth control is hugely important.)
Re:Lots of cheap carbon stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
It actually takes two to create children.
That hasn't been true for a few decades.
The fact that 9 Months is taken residence in the womb (and subject to termination right up and sometimes passed delivery), is simply a liberal convenience. Two Males cannot create a child, neither can two females.
You haven't been keeping up with science and technology.
Both are inconvenient biological facts liberals don't actually like (its unfair, you homophobic bastard).
Ah yes, liberals. Of course, a discussion about population and procreation is best framed in the context of political leanings.
And children tend to do much better with two parents actively involved in raising them to adulthood, everything else equal. While a single woman COULD raise a child, typically most women do not have the luxury of means to provide for a child by themselves.
Really children tend to do much better with a village actively involved in raising them to adulthood, everything else equal. While a mere couple COULD raise a child, typically most couples do not have the luxury of culture to provide for a child by themselves.
You choose to draw the line somewhere between "single mother" and "both biological parents". However, this is arbitrary and ignores things like the efficacy of adoptive parenthood as well as what we know about traditional childrearing (as was practiced by humans prior to the green revolution). That's fine, but don't pretend that your arbitrary distinction is the only "correct" distinction. Different ways of raising children work differently, and simply because you deem one method to be sufficient or ideal does not mean that this is true for all parents or all children.
So, unless you're talking about just the 9 months of pregnancy, I would suggest that children should be a choice made by a man, and a woman together in mutual agreement whenever possible.
You're entitled to your own opinions, but you're not making a convincing argument by setting them forth without identifying a reasonable basis for having them.
Yeah, I am a hater for wanting the best for children.
And of course, you know what's best for children. Everyone else, they're just idiots. Or worse still, liberals.
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If some light is being turned into electricity and then heat on the surface instead of being reflected into space, that adds heat to the atmosphere doesn't it?
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Ebola is a rather inefficient killer of humans as such things go. The current outbreak, if it is allowed to run its course, won't kill as many people as die of natural causes in California this year....
Re:Lots of cheap carbon stuff (Score:5, Funny)
Hiking, working out, Lhaving sex.[emphasis added]
This is Slashdot. You must be new here.
Re:Lots of cheap carbon stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
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What about Heating and Cooling? They really haven't changed and are the lion's share of energy consumption in the home.
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..having sex.
Yeah sure just what we need, even more humans being born because people have nothing better to do than fuck. Sure thing that'll fix all our energy problems.
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Actually, unless you have a 128 core rack server with 32 dual fan GPUs and a really really big screen, your car has more carbon cost to build than your computer.
If you do have such a gaming rig, run it on DC current instead of AC and it will use a lot less energy. And since the grid can drop, have it run off solar batteries.
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Navel gazing (Score:5, Insightful)
While environmental studies professors continue to pump out ready excuses for imposing increasing economic feudalism in Europe and North America, China and India are going to build out nuclear power and produce energy. I doubt they'll be dissuaded from trying because of anything this professor says.
When people like this say, "the world can't" remember that they actually mean, "we aren't going to let you."
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While environmental studies professors continue to pump out ready excuses for imposing increasing economic feudalism in Europe and North America, China and India are going to build out nuclear power and produce energy. I doubt they'll be dissuaded from trying because of anything this professor says.
When people like this say, "the world can't" remember that they actually mean, "we aren't going to let you."
This. I wish I had mod points today to mod this up.
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While a bit dogmatic I would say that nuclear and solar and wind could an energy rich future. It will take adding nuclear to the mix but it is possible.
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Besides, energy consumption in the USA is the extreme end of the spectrum. Realistically, it will be a while before everyone is up to European levels of energy consumption, w
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Speaking as a non-libertarian, I don't think you know what a libertarian is.
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Speaking as a Libertarian who has run for office, Ill say he has no idea what a libertarian is!
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Is there no difference in your view between the physical might of the state and the abstract might of economic power?
Re:Navel gazing (Score:4, Insightful)
Not this libertarian. A free market requires freedom not feudalism. And the only way capitalism is an efficient system is when capital is spread out into as many hands as possible. Capitalism is meant as the economic form of democracy in the sense that many hands will most often make better decisions than central planners or kings. Free Market Capitalism isn't meant as a winner take all sport of who can accumulate the most capital in order to buy Hawaii... ie Larry's World. For Free Market Capitalism to work as a system there have to be high taxes on the most rich and/or on vast estates as a way to periodically re-level the playing field and keep some equity in the system.
In the case of nuclear power I think we need a government subsidized build out to insure longer term stability of our energy supply in a carbon free future rather than leave it up to short term whims of profiteers. With nuclear materials the risks and benefits are just too high to leave it to the free market alone.
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I'm all for individual rights, but not for deluded Libertarian ideals. Limiting government and moving the power to private entities (AKA corporations, families and clans, owners of resouces) is demonstrably not the way to go. Because self regulating corporations have such a shining and spotless history.
Individual rights are worth diddly if I am poisoned with every breath I take, every sip of water I drink and every bite of food I eat due to an absence of government oversight (yeah right, sure the corporat
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In Liberal World, you'll have the individual right to do whatever the Central Planners tell you. Because they know what's best for you.
Re:Navel gazing (Score:4, Insightful)
Good luck with that. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep, good luck convincing everyone that they should live on only what they "need" to survive, because the mud-hut dwellers in third world countries "deserve" to live like 2010-era Americans.
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A typical american could use 1/3rd or down to 1/4th of the energy he uses and the whole country could cut down to 1/10th and no one would realize any difference.
You only have to invest in devices that use less power.
Why exactly do you think germans or frensh or british or italian or spanish or norwegian or finnish or swedish or ... insert random country ... have a lower standard of living than you americans have? Why do you believe a guy from Bangladesh will need as much power than you do, instead of going
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A typical american could use 1/3rd or down to 1/4th of the energy he uses and the whole country could cut down to 1/10th and no one would realize any difference.
This, I think, is the most important thing to keep in mind; When discussing "quality of life" in terms of energy, we can reframe it of in terms of energy*efficiency. We can lower energy use without reducing QoL by improving efficiency.
Not impressed? Was not meant to impress you. That is per year not per month.
I'd be more impressed if that was per month... it would be nearly three times as much energy as my entire house uses, which is roughly four times the size of your apartment. And I have all electric appliances!
Anyway, at some point in time your energy will be green, and your energy demand will drop and then you have to fight the power companies about: why can it be that my electricity is so expensive when YOU get it for 'free'?
An argument easily won: I'm charging you for "free" green power beca
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Haves and Have-Nots (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll play the asshole in this comic bit: Why should everyone in the world have 2010 American standard of living? We're wasteful, bigoted, conspicuous consumers at (or near) the top of the consumption food chain. This is like expecting everyone to be a 1%er (in American parlance), somehow, or for all of us to be above average drivers. We can't all be rich and good looking. Remember - when everyone is special, no one is special. We need classes just to keep the system churning.
Of all the possibilities, striving for the American 2010 standard makes no sense on so many levels.
Re:Haves and Have-Nots (Score:5, Insightful)
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Because pop-culture has told us that's how you know you've made it.
And because the stock market needs the entire world to grow their income and spend more so than companies can keep up this never-ending annual growth -- otherwise, people will realize how much of a lie the stock market is.
Because, th
Economic growth has to exceed population growth (Score:3)
Because, these days, if you're not growing 5-10% per annum, you must be in decline.
No, you just have to be growing faster than the population grows. While it's a bit more complicated than this, if your economic growth is slower than the rate of increase in the population then you are spreading resources among more people and therefore everyone is on average a little bit worse off. Since there has been no prolonged decrease in human population in recorded history you have to have a few percent of economic growth merely to stay right where you are.
For an economy like the US a growth rate
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You'll note I was talking about the stock markets.
Which are operating under the unsupportable, and irrational premise that all companies need to grow every single year, and that it's mathematically unsustainable without new markets.
So, the way the stock market operates these days is a giant ponzi scheme which can't possibly be sustained.
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Resources are finite so yes we will have haves and have nots it's a fact of life. Environmental justice? The third world has been burning it's way up the ladder it's easiest short term.
Re:Haves and Have-Nots (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I correct in assuming here that YOU have absolutely no intentions of lowering your own standard of living?
As to striving for American 2010 standard of living, what the world should be doing is aiming higher than that, rather than lower than that....
Conservation and smart practices (Score:5, Interesting)
"It's highly unlikely that the world can safely produce almost five times as much electricity by 2035 as it does now"
In the 7 years I have lived in my house, I have reduced my electricity consumption by 50%. There is nothing magical about what I've done. Insulation, replacing AC units with energy efficient ones as they wore out, LED light bulbs, energy star appliances. I used a "TED" (The Energy Detective) to figure out what my big users of electricity were. These upgrades have already paid for themselves in lower energy bills. Last year the addition of solar PV and a solar water heater have further reduced my electric demand by 2/3. These upgrades will pay themselves back in about 12 years.
My overall demand is 1/6th of what it was 7 years ago and I have sacrificed no enjoyment of life to get it. If anything, my house is more comfortable and better lit and my appliances work better. And there are still planned improvements that will further reduce my demand, probably by 1/2 over the next few years. I live in a 75 year old 3000+ sq ft house and my energy usage is lower than the median energy usage in Florida, while being 50% larger than the median house size.
I agree it's foolish to try to increase global electricity production by a factor of 5. What we should do is relentlessly pursue efficiency until we reach the threshold of diminishing returns.
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Last year the addition of solar PV and a solar water heater have further reduced my electric demand by 2/3. These upgrades will pay themselves back in about 12 years.
My only issue with PV is that I could never get my money back on them. Considering we get golf ball sized hail once every 3 to 5 year. I have had to replace my roof three times in the 15 years I have lived in my house.
Re:Conservation and smart practices (Score:5, Insightful)
The number one investment you can make is in insulation. Most homes throw away over half of all the heat they generate or have to cool FAR too much because of heat let in during the summer. You should not even think of doing PV work until you have done the insulation work. Insulation pays back faster and does not have the same kinds of damage issues as PV does.
The second investment would be in more efficient devices. Most furnaces are fairly bad and most electric devices in the house are pretty bad. Why run your AC more in the summer because your refrigerator is doing more to create heat than it should?
PV is the last step I would take not the first. First insulate the hell out of the house, then make devices more efficient. Depending on climate an attic fan is a great investment to clear out the extremely hot air in the summer. PV mostly just looks flashy but that is about all it is.
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What terrible recommendation. Attic fan? An attic fan is only appropriate in very limited circumstances which depend not on your climate but how airflow in the attic works.
A properly sealed attic with a continuous ridge vent and soffit vents would have it's airflow damaged badly by an attic fan which would reduce the life of the roof and increase energy costs. I had R-40 blown into my attic recently and the insulation contractor recommended some gable vents, the gable vents I'd just recently had sealed up
Re:Conservation and smart practices (Score:4, Insightful)
Guess what? Your consumption and all the other houses in your area are just a rounding error.
And where will these LEDs and insulation come from when the fossil fuel fiesta stops?
You better get used to insulating with animal hair and mud, if you can afford to raise animals by candlelight, that is.
Ahh, but fossil fuels won't just suddenly 'stop', they'll just get more and more expensive as it becomes harder and harder to extract from the ground. As fossil fuels rise in price, making changes to use less fuel becomes more attractive. Of course, it's much cheaper and easier to make the switch now while fossil fuels are plentiful, but there's no reason to believe that fossil fuel production will suddenly stop and we'll all be raising animals by candlelight.
Communism Inspired Tyranny (Score:5, Insightful)
First, though, they need to understand the difference between needs and wants.
i.e.
We the central planners will determine what you need, because anything you think you need, is just a want -- at least that's what we think -- and since we're in charge, we decide. This is just not something you little citizens think about enough!
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And the end result is always the same: Extreme scarcity except for those who happen to be in charge.
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And the end result is always the same: Extreme scarcity except for those who happen to be in charge.
Indeed, but enough about capitalism!
Re:Communism Inspired Tyranny (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm always confused by this objection to "central planning". For example, I've argued that the US should build up the train system, and have been told that it's a terrible idea because it's an example of "central planning". The government building up the train system requires that it assumes to know what's good for us, where we will want to travel, and it can't possibly know with perfect forethought.
Meanwhile, some of these same people will support the building an maintenance of the highway system, government support of the American auto industry, and gasoline subsidies. Somehow all of those things represent "freedom" because it means I get to feel good about myself when I buy a cool car.
Or the government can't build Internet infrastructure, because "central planning". Meanwhile, it's fine for Verizon to run most of the vital infrastructure. I guess that's fine because Verizon is too incompetent to plan anything?
Essentially what I'm getting at is, whenever I hear this objection to "central planning", the real issue always seems to boil down to "rich people might not make enough money."
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Central planning does not work, in general. See Hayek's "The Fatal Conceit" if you are wondering how and why.
Which isn't to say that central planning can never work. A rail network is a large enough project that it more or less must be planned. The question there is who does the planning and who pays for it.
Under capitalism, the people planning it are the ones providing the funding. If they plan it poorly, they lose money, and thus have less ability to make poor decisions in the future. If they plan it
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At this point, I loath air travel. Don't let that stop you though. The TSA needs someone to do body cavity searches on.
Just skimming TFA gave me cancer (Score:2, Flamebait)
If I had read the whole thing I'd probably be dead by now.
Lot of blathering about what's "fair". Wishing for "Climate Justice". Carbon allocation according to need (presumably at the diktat of the author and his friends). The whole thing is just so far out there on the Marxist scale, it would scare even socialists like Nancy Pelosi.
Timing and Assumptions (Score:5, Informative)
I think the idea that by 2035, we should expect every country in the world to have a comparable standard of living to America today is nothing short of laughable. So that blows a big hole right through the main premise.
Furthermore, aren't there figures that show that we could supply enough energy to power the entire world with a solar farm of a few (few dozen, few hundred, whatever) square miles in the Sahara, or something like that? Obviously that in itself isn't necessarily a practical solution, but it should demonstrate that the idea that we can't provide enough power to the entire world to match America's level of consumption right now is, at best, a shaky one.
It sounds to me like they picked an arbitrary date when we were somehow supposed to get everyone's standard of living up to America's, without considering what would actually be required to do that (hint: it includes stopping an awful lot of violence that's not likely to stop any time soon). If you are going to assume that we can raise everyone's standard of living like that in the first place, why would you not also assume that we can build out solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources to match?
Dan Aris
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I think the idea that by 2035, we should expect every country in the world to have a comparable standard of living to America today is nothing short of laughable.
Western Europe is already there. Japan is mostly there. China is getting there. Russia, not so much.
The end somehow is always 30 years away (Score:5, Interesting)
Close enough that we have to DO SOMETHING NOW!, but far enough that no one will ever be called to account for being wrong, but not so far away that it's not in our life time and can be ignored. Having lost track of the number of such deadlines for the point of no return that have already passed in my life time let me just say I am a little skeptical.
And you know the Indians, the Chinese, and many others could care less and are going right on growing their populations and carbon production and there is no chance they will do anything but grow for the next 30 years. So if the author is right and we have only that long before we have irrevocably ruined our environment, then the choice for those of us in the industrial world is clear.
Enjoy all the vacations and recreational activities you can now. No seriously, if they are right then we are doomed, so you might as well enjoy it while you can, and they are wrong then you will have the last laugh while they sit around entertaining themselves doing the crossword puzzles, while they suffer without air conditioning.
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Bullshit! This subject as framed is pure flamebait (Score:2)
The problem is purely political/cultural (okay, it boils down to biological, but who's counting?). The technology is comparatively easy. Right now we create poverty out of abundance, simply to support the financial systems we have surrendered control to. All our energy is spent putting up barriers.
"The Breakthrough" linked above is a shill journal (Score:2)
Half of it's supposed academic writings in this supposed economic journal are editorials about how unfair the media is to conservatives. Now, that kind of writing, in moderation and in an appropriately academic framing can fit within the model of a good journal. I don't mean to say "Journals can't have editorial". But half, with a message-based push is past the point of credibility.
Take this piece [thebreakthrough.org] as an example. It sort of adopts the tone of an academic writing, but is clearly out of place in an "econom
Nuclear power--the no carbon solution (Score:5, Insightful)
It's highly unlikely that the world can safely produce almost five times as much electricity by 2035 as it does now
We could if environmentalists and NIMBY's would stop blocking new nuclear power plant construction.
ehm (Score:2)
provide everyone with a circa-2010 American standard of living
You can't be serious. This isn't desirable at all.
Love from Europe
'Global solution', what a joke that is (Score:2)
Living on a budget (Score:2)
s/Recreation/Procreation/g (Score:4, Insightful)
Most forms of recreation don't consume much natural resources compared to production of food and other basic necessities. On the other hand, unchecked population growth is the most fundamental cause of today's social and environmental problems. We need to get serious in combatting religious and cultural superstitions that prevent billions of people from using effective birth control. Then wealthy nations need to make access to condoms and birth controls pills free and ubiquitous worldwide. Then we just have to desperately hope this will work, else the future is tens of billions of people living and dying in misery.
Re: (Score:3)
You are several decades out of date. The entire developed world has under-replacement fertility except for a few close-knit religious communities like the Amish. Even China has just 1.5 kids per pair of parents now. India is at 2.5 and rapidly decreasing. The only countries with exploding population are in Africa, plus a couple outliers elsewhere like Afghanistan. Once African countries start to have significant economic growth - and some major ones like Nigeria and Ethiopia are heading in that direction al
Climate change, not climate destruction. (Score:5, Insightful)
We need to stop thinking of this like a disaster that's suddenly going to happen. There's no magic date where the climate is going to be "destroyed". What's going to happen is the climate is going to change, and much of our way of life and infra-structure is going to suffer because of that. We can't "destroy" the climate, we can only make it harder on ourselves and have to do a lot of work to adapt. But there's not exactly an armageddon that's going to unfold. Food production is going to be harder, and the places to grow crops are going to shift.
The article itself is a little silly. Climate scientists don't debate whether global warming is real, and human caused. But they DO debate like hell about what's going to happen, how much carbon is "too much", etc. So to make any decisions about "30 more years" or making some silly prediction about everyone living like Americans in just 20 years is incredibly stupid, and counter-productive. Those issues are FAR from settled, unlike the clarity that the article presents.
As far as wants and needs, that'll be settled like it always has, through cost. It's already happening. The SUV craze of the 90s through the 2000s is already on the wane. Gas is more expensive and is going to remain so for a while, and that gas-guzzling Suburban is not only expensive to fuel, it makes you look like a bit of a pig now. People in European countries aren't somehow more altruistic, and care about others more than the US (and therefore drive smaller cars), it's just that gasoline is quite expensive, and the streets are smaller. So the giant car thing is totally impractical. Eventually Americans are going to start driving smaller cars just like they do in much of Europe.
100% of my needs by solar (Score:2)
I installed solar panels this summer and they should generate 100% of my electric use (including electric car) over the course of a year.
I probably have an average American standard of living.
So I see no need to huddle in the dark and cold this winter and there is no reason the rest of the world could not enjoy this same standard of living.
Of course, investments will be needed in the grid and storage and base load but these can be made relatively cheaply, especially if there is a carbon tax to shift investm
Re: (Score:3)
I don't know about "healthier". You will probably find people who would want to debate that point. But it is certainly cheaper to go without meat. I'm Orthodox, and we regularly fast from meat about 180 days out of the year. I've gotten to the point where I abstain from meat about 330 days a year. I only have meat about two or three times per month. Buying mostly fruits and vegetables and cooking them up yourself at home is considerably cheaper than eating meat at every meal. It costs a fraction comp
Allocation of Scarce Resources, Oh My! (Score:5, Insightful)
Living On a Carbon Budget: The End of Recreation As We Know It?
Oh my god! Whatever will we do?!? We'll have to come up with some way to allocate scarce resouces based on competing wants! If only there were a science that studies economic activity to gain an understanding of the processes that govern the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services in an economy. [wikipedia.org] If we had that, then it would imply we already have an enormous, global system for handling this exact problem.
Not that it doesn't need tweeking, and we need to internalize the cost of carbon emissions, but this isn't just a solved problem; it is one of the most intensely studied and tested fields of sociopolitical theory that there is. And it doesn't mean we banned recreation. As it turns out, some recreation is actually good for the system, because it increases productivity.
And can we produce five times as much energy? Ummm, yeah. Real easy. There is a shitload of energy falling out of the clear blue sky at all times. If we have the resources, we can grab more of it. So that completes the whole "productivity" loop back to increasing production of energy.
Re: (Score:3)
Which basically means that we're fucked, because economics is such a soft science that parapsychologists laugh at them.
Mud Huts (Score:3)
There are a lot of assumptions going on here. First, that anyone in the first world would even seriously consider living the "mud hut" life in the name of climate change. Second, that the ruling class in the first world would ever permit the rest of the world entry into the first world. Third, that energy consumption must be severely restricted since there are no safe ways to produce first world quantities of power absent carbon-based fuels.
The world's present energy mix, and consumption practices are built on a history of cheap, readily available fossil fuels. Properly incentivized (read: the external costs of carbon-based fuels captured), the world's production would quite naturally swing towards "green energy." Any gaps in technology would be researched and quickly filled. Efficiency can and would be found. There's no reason we can't do things differently and yet maintain a high standard of living except that entrenched interests on the production side like it the way it is.
what's good for the goose (Score:3)
I believe that University of Colorado environmental studies professor Roger Pielke Jr.should start us off by reducing his carbon footprint to 3rd world levels as an example.
Bullshit and other animal feces (Score:5, Insightful)
In 1890 a similar egg-head "predicted", Manhattan will be feet-deep in horse manure by 1930 [nofrakkingconsensus.com]. A similar prediction was made for London of 1950 — the number of horses required to bring in supplies necessary for the growing population and its growing demands was calculated, along with the amount of excrement the beasts produced. The volume was then divided by the area of the city's streets to produce the depth of "coverage". An easy mathematical problem, a high-schooler solve it, so it had to be correct — and any attempts to argue against the conclusions were, of course, "anti-science".
Of course, as we know now, the automobile arrived to save the environment. But the fear-mongering did not cease...
Why exactly is humanity "highly unlikely" to be producing as much electricity as it wants to by 2035? Even today's technologies allow for that, and in 20 years we are bound to see improvements in both electricity production (higher) and consumption (lower).
I for one refuse to feel guilty about my recreation.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Shit, I *WISH* I could live like Al Gore. The guy has a fleet of SUV's, a mansion with a power bill that makes mine look like a joke, and closets full of nice clothes, rooms full of expensive shit, etc. Were that we could *ALL* live as "sustainably" as environmentalists like Al Gore or Leonardo Dicaprio.
Re: (Score:2)
But maybe he really needs all those things?
Re: (Score:3)
And don't forget Acorn and Van Jones and Jane Fonda. They're all in on the conspiracy to take away our ATVs.
Radical environmentalists, like radical feminists, just make me so darn mad that I'm like to shit in my hat. And don't get me started on that Obama. Did you know that he keeps a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy idling behind the White House in case he gets a late night urge to go for a Fatburger in Mombasa? You know how much carbon one a them Lockheed C-5 Galaxy burns up idling? And when he travels, he take
Re: (Score:2)
Carbon 'tax' will be imposed at transaction, not at use. That means that the purchase cost of fuel or of electricity, or of a good, will go up based on taxes at some point in either the supply or retail chain.
So, kind of like how it already is, some hobbies get more expensive, some get cheaper, some stay the same.
Re: (Score:3)
Spoilers: It will tell us that the rich have all-consuming, all-important needs and the rest of us merely have trifling wants. Act surprised.
GOP FUD (Score:3)
slashdot is home to GOP'er FUD...it's not a big problem, but it's a problem
imho, it goes to false equivalence...the idea that to be fair you have to give each side "equal time" by having 3 'liberal' and 3 'conservative' leaning major contributors...that's a guess but it appears that way when reading slashdot
rarely is it this blatant...but i still think slashdot is good and relevant even though sometimes we see stuff like this story
Re:GOP FUD (Score:4, Informative)
imho, it goes to false equivalence...the idea that to be fair you have to give each side "equal time" by having 3 'liberal' and 3 'conservative' leaning major contributors...that's a guess but it appears that way when reading slashdot
That might be true if the "liberal" editors actually posted liberal stories to the front page with anywhere near as much of the frequency that we see the conservative editors posting conservative FUD to the front page.
rarely is it this blatant..
Look through what samzenpus posts to the front page, he does this kind of shit all the time he posted complete and utter conservative FUD a few weeks ago that was on this level of blatant FUD-ness, but he sneaks in little partisan barbs on a high frequency in general. If he is on staff to bring out conservative eyeballs, he is doing a good job. If he is on staff to actually be an intelligent editor and reviewer or news, he is a total failure.
but i still think slashdot is good and relevant even though sometimes we see stuff like this story
This shit should happen a lot less often, or even better not at all.
Re:GOP FUD (Score:4, Funny)
to be fair, admitting that science is real IS a liberal position. thus, the supposedly liberal editors fulfill their quota just by not denying reality.
whereas the equivalent from the supposedly conservative editors would be an article about how "of course they think science is real, because their jobs depend on it!"
Re: (Score:3)
It didn't take long for him to reach to the bottom of the barrel on this one to scare up conservative excitement.
It is also dishonest scaremongering. An American-level standard of living does NOT require American-level energy consumption. Plenty of other rich countries have much higher Energy/GDP ratios. America's high energy consumption is a result of urban sprawl, SUVs, etc. Those are not necessary to have a nice lifestyle. Even in America, energy consumption has been falling as GDP has been rising, and should continue to fall due to urban gentrification, electric cars, LED lights, etc.