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

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

#121

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #74
ChuckMcM wrote: post #53

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.…

> Its nice to see this reality (of how extrapolating is bad because things change) ...but when they do that same thing on earth temperature everyone loses his mind

The heat-trapping behaviour of CO_2 was first accurately measured in the 19th century, and all climate change models do actually predict convergence, not linear rise. It's just that the point of convergence is not one compatible with civilisation as we know it.

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

#122

Post by sachdevap »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #84
sachdevap wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And on what scale is this actually happening?

I don't have any figures citations since my knowledge comes from when I used to hang out on Precision Agriculture forums, but it's common and getting more so. As drones get less expensive, it's easy to sit in your den and fly over the fields looking for the areas where you should go out and spray some more, or drive over in your UTV and take a closer look at that "weird spot" on the "back 80." Farmers are very aware…

I am sure they are. But a leap from combines to decentralized sensing using drones is a big one, and I'd want to see some numbers to verify this.

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

#123

Post by mooreds »

I had a friend who was gloomy about resource extraction one time. I comforted him by saying there are few limits on the number of masseuses and story tellers we need.

As we get better and better at producing the necessities, we'll desire more luxuries, some of which are experiences.

Glad to see it confirmed in the numbers.

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

#124

Post by novok »

sachdevap wrote: post #27
novok wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A hypothetical example is drones going through a field and manually picking out weeds, increasing yield with the same amount of resources. Similarly you can get fine grained ‘crop analytics’ through drones scanning the field and acting in response.

And on what scale is this actually happening?

You should go google and research the numbers yourself.

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

#125

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

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…

If I sing beautiful songs on the street, that has a material value one could measure. It represents economic growth compared to a world where I do something unproductive, like arguing basic reasoning with people on HN. It does not, however, require more input materials.

I swear, one day I'll find out why the software crowd, of all people, is completely incapable of understanding the difference between "material" and "real".

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

#126

Post by rdiddly »

twoslide wrote: post #119

It really only makes sense to understand the world economy as a whole. On this scale, consumption (e.g. steel production or oil consumption) continue to grow [1,2]. Americans are in the fortunate position of selling services (e.g. finance, advertising, information management) and consuming finished products from the rest of the world, but the American economy should not be considered a closed system. [1] https://en.w…

Indeed, or to be a bit cute about it: "Does the 'America' graph include the 'China' part of America?"

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

#127

Post by samsonradu »

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…

Not only this but you must also take into account the source of the money that buys your digital goods.

There is a strong correlation between the environmental cost and economic growth. It might weaken but it will never be decoupled, as long as people do have 'material' needs.

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

#128

Post by zamadatix »

munk-a wrote: post #118
OldSchoolJohnny wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible they are trying to sell for the same price but with wildly varying costs of each varietal of coffee? I.E. they want to sell a bag for 15 bucks across the board but some beans cost them far more than others to source?

It still seems purely disingenuous to package them deceptively to appear to be the same quantity.

Up to some value of volumeDelta * productCount it actually makes sense to use the same container due to sourcing/manufacturing cost from the variance so I wouldn't say purely disingenuous, there is real reasoning behind some of it... it's just marketing gets in the way of when you should actually add that second container size i.e. it's costing you more to always use the bigger container but the marketing department says the increase in sales due to confusion outweighs it.

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

#129

Post by breakbread »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #116
pjmorris wrote: post #96

Someone I know posted a picture of an empty rolodex today, saying that they'd moved their friends to 'the cloud.' I'm sure you can look at your phone apps and see other things that would've been physical objects ten or twenty years ago. So, that's one way material use has, at least, shifted. There are two other trends that worry me more. One is visible in the freezer section at the grocery store; a "half-gallon" of i…

In the EU, shops are required to display the price per , i. e. all coffees have a (usually smaller, but readable) Euro/500g price. There used to be an even more drastic law proscribing certain sizes and disallowing all others. Flour would only be available in 500g and 1kg bags, for example. They got rid of it, possibly because they got sick of people making fun of EU regulations (that's what happened with the famous…

>In the EU, shops are required to display the price per , i. e. all coffees have a (usually smaller, but readable) Euro/500g price.

Grocery stores in the US do this, but it's not something you necessarily see in food service shops.

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

#130

Post by analogwzrd »

pjmorris wrote: post #96

Someone I know posted a picture of an empty rolodex today, saying that they'd moved their friends to 'the cloud.' I'm sure you can look at your phone apps and see other things that would've been physical objects ten or twenty years ago. So, that's one way material use has, at least, shifted. There are two other trends that worry me more. One is visible in the freezer section at the grocery store; a "half-gallon" of i…

This little video of a an 80's desk versus a contemporary one has been bouncing around Twitter today...it's a really great visual showing how apps have slowly been replacing everything that used to clutter a desk.

https://twitter.com/SteveStuWill/status/1181708302943539200?...

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