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Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

reason.com

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Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#51

Post by kube-system »

kevan wrote: post #25
danans wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much more precise usage of water/fertilizer to optimize yield/input can be enabled by computation and data.

Precision Agriculture[1] is the term for anyone looking to learn more. Even small farms now track all inputs/outputs on every acre they farm. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_agriculture

The Land O Lakes CEO was showing this off on 60 minutes just this past week.

Check out 5:22 in the video here:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/land-olakes-ceo-beth-ford-and-t...

Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#52

Post by mempko »

georgeburdell wrote: post #39

I didn’t see it addressed in the article so I’ll slip on my tinfoil hat for a moment... Could this be related to growing income and wealth inequality? Poor people buy less stuff, and presumably rich people get rich by not buying more stuff commensurate with their incomes. Even the falling fertilizer consumption might be explained if poorer people are shifting to more processed junk food. The article notes 1970 as the…

There is nothing "tinfoil" hat about what you said. This is a known outcome of growing inequality.

Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#53

Post by ChuckMcM »

From the article: It suggests that economic growth in a mature economy does not necessarily increase the pressure on the world's reserves of natural resources and on its physical environment.

Jesse Asubel has been looking at "dematerialization" for a long time[1] but it has only been relatively recently, now with a couple of decades of additional data to look at, that it is getting the attention I think it deserves.

One of the consistently annoying things, for me, in science reporting is the extrapolation of a given set of ratios out to some point where the result is very click-baity. The systems guy in me has experience that all exponential trends are s-curves, and so I feel that one must at least acknowledge that fact in your reporting. I understand it, it means that the predicted outcome might not happen at all, but it is important to the story.

So economists do the same thing, they take some ratio of numbers that seem to be tracking the 'size' of the economy and then run that trend out 50, 100, 500 years. It really doesn't matter, but what is important, and this article and other papers on de-materialization have demonstrated, is that neither the economic growth rate, or the relationship between that growth rate and some other factor, are ever really constant. Thus any point that depends on them being constant for more than a decade or so, is really stretching it.

Its nice to see this reality (of how extrapolating is bad because things change) demonstrated in a clear and convincing way.

[1] "Materialization and Dematerialization: Measures and Trends" -- https://www.jstor.org/stable/20027375?seq=1#page_scan_tab_co...

Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#55

Post by qsymmachus »

tboughen wrote: post #46
qsymmachus wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incorrect. Every economic output requires material inputs. > I can create digital goods and services which people buy Your digital goods and services require physical machines to run on. These machines are made of physical materials, including some rare earth minerals that are costly to extract. These machines require energy to run, which also requires material inputs. > I can even give massages all day, and…

While your point is true on a basic level, I think The parent’s point is on to something. There must be a level of economic production that falls below the level of emission that can be absorbed without contributing to climate change. Furthermore in <1billion years everything on earth dies anyway (due to an expanding, ageing, sun) - so it is sustainable to use <1billionth of non-renewable resources.

> There must be a level of economic production that falls below the level of emission that can be absorbed without contributing to climate change

You're right, there absolutely is such a level. The important point is that to stay at or below that level, you have to give up on the idea of perpetual, infinite growth. The inputs and outputs must remain constant.

My point was that there's no such thing as "immaterial" growth, so we can't escape this limitation by making a bunch of apps forever.

Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#56

Post by cmrx64 »

georgeburdell wrote: post #30
TeMPOraL wrote: post #14

This reads to me mostly as the US importing more, so the increased material use doesn't show in statistics. The article also mentions increase in use of plastics. One thing I'm curious about though - how come energy use stopped being correlated with economic growth? That's new.

The article says that imports were accounted for.

Only imports of raw material. Not finished goods. And don't forget all the resources embodied in the actual means of production! That's a lot of heavy machinery.

Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#57

Post by cpursley »

georgeburdell wrote: post #39

I didn’t see it addressed in the article so I’ll slip on my tinfoil hat for a moment... Could this be related to growing income and wealth inequality? Poor people buy less stuff, and presumably rich people get rich by not buying more stuff commensurate with their incomes. Even the falling fertilizer consumption might be explained if poorer people are shifting to more processed junk food. The article notes 1970 as the…

The raw ingredients required for junk food require massive amounts of fertilizer (soy, corn, wheat, sugarcane).

Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#58

Post by bgorman »

qsymmachus wrote: post #37
seibelj wrote: post #23

Some people say growth can't happen forever, and all growth comes at environmental cost, but that simply isn't true. I can create digital goods and services which people buy, and this increases GDP, and it doesn't hurt the environment and is indeed economic growth in the realest sense. I can even give massages all day, and this also doesn't destroy the environment.

This is incorrect. Every economic output requires material inputs. > I can create digital goods and services which people buy Your digital goods and services require physical machines to run on. These machines are made of physical materials, including some rare earth minerals that are costly to extract. These machines require energy to run, which also requires material inputs. > I can even give massages all day, and…

A desktop from a decade ago can still run productivity software, especially if you run Linux or another operating system that doesn't cut off support for non-technical reasons. It is true that some physical resources are going to be required e.g. electricity - but in general we are wasting tons of precious resources building "disposable" devices like cell phones that are used for only 2 years to do tasks that have little economic value. If we actually used hardware for more of its usable lifetime, we could greatly reduce long-term environmental costs.

Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#59

Post by cmrx64 »

swebs wrote: post #54
throwawaysea wrote: post #10

Is this simply because manufacturing is offshore?

That seems like the most likely explanation, especially since this trend started right when trade opened with China.

It's confusing to me that this isn't proffered at all in the article or most of the comments here. Without understanding this factor, how can "dematerialization" be taken seriously?

Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#60

Post by thrower123 »

Decade wrote: post #43

This seems to be the flip side of designing things to be no more durable than necessary. With the highly regulated exception of cars, the profit motive is driving companies to use the least amount of material, whether it’s a washing machine made of stamped metal or a tissue-thin plastic bag. On the other hand, well-meaning socialist interventions are driving additional environmental impacts, as people buy “reusable”…

This feels right to me. At the peak material usage highlighted in the graphs, around 2000, consumer products seemed to built considerably more ruggedly than they are today - possibly over-built, really, in some cases. If you shave off 1 or 2% of the material going into a product year over year, that really amounts to something after two decades.
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