Summary: William Stanley Jevons a while ago made a prediction about the future of energy, and now it appears as if it is coming true. He believed that eventually, the cost of obtaining fossil fuels would be to great, and companies would not be able to profit from mining. Also, as we use up the easy to access fuels, they will become harder to reach, further driving up the cost of fossil fuels, which will negatively effect our economy. Overall, he believes that fossil fuels have become almost inseparable with our current economy, and that there will come a time where gathering these fuels is no longer with the time, money and effort.
Herman Daly wrote a similar article about our rapid progression as a society. Our economy is rapidly progressing thanks to the useful properties of fossil fuels. Unfortunately, this also makes us dependent on resources that are very quickly being used up. If society continues to progress, or we do not take a step back from our current society, we will run out of resources before we know it and will be devastating to our economy as well as our way of life. Bottom Line: We need to slow down and maintain our economy.
Terms:
~N/A?
Comments:
~Jevons' main concern it not that we are running out of coal and fossil fuels. Yet, it is along a similar lines of thinking. As we continue to mine coal, we will have to dig deeper and put in more effort to obtain our fuels. Eventually, he fears that the energy and price required to obtain coal will exceed what it is worth.
~Daly uses an example comparing a helicopter and an airplane to describe two different types of economies. The helicopter relates to an economy that is stable and steady, what an ideal economy should be. The airplane represents our current economy which tries to rapidly progress in a straight like as quickly as possible.
Questions:
~Can humanity still function without the use of modern day technology?
~Daly makes an interesting point, either way our society as it is right now will fail to progress and proceed in the opposite direction. He is proposing that we should choose when this should happen rather than hit a dead end with no return. Does this mean that no matter what, humanity will have to get rid of all of its current technology in the future?
~What is the likelihood that we can transform into a steady-state economy?
1. Many people _do_ function without modern technology. They live lives that we would consider materially very poor, but they do function. For those of us in the rich countries to go back to that would be a wrenchig change, but should be possible in principle. There's an open debate as to whether 6.5 billion or 8 billion people can be fed without fossil fuels.
ReplyDelete2. I doubt we'd ever have to get rid of _all_ our current technology. But as to which parts will persist and which won't, there's no advantage in trying to be a prophet.
3. I'd put the odds at transitioning to SSE rather low. Those favoring and pursuing an expansionary approach will always have a sort of Darwinian edge over SSE types in the short run, and in the long run they damage everyone. There's no clear path to successful adoption of SSE by individual countries, and international coordination is very difficult.