Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reason.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 316 posts

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

#151

Post by anon1m0us »

JackFr wrote: post #144
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…

Your point is well taken, insofar as manufactured goods, but does not explain the decline in agricultural and construction inputs. In agriculture we're (currently) a net exporter and construction is non-traded.

Decades of optimization. Fertilizers sold by the pound are purer now than before -- more refined. GMO makes crops immune to many pests and diseases. Cross breeding with drought tolerant crops reduces water requirements.

Technology like Hydroponics also reduces consumption while increasing output.

Computer aided design helps with construction.

It's all there.

This is part of why R. Buckminster Fuller thought there was more than enough to go around.

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

#152

Post by ctdonath »

Capitalism at work, saving the environment.

Increasing profits necessitates reducing one's demand for supply. Using less steel, paper, fertilizer, and energy to achieve same/better results while tautologically using less resources is indeed good all around (mostly).

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

#153

Post by andrewmutz »

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…

You haven't rebutted the parent poster.

He said "Some people say growth can't happen forever, and all growth comes at environmental cost". Pointing out that "Every economic output requires material inputs" doesn't mean that there are limits to growth or that you can't have growth without environmental cost.

As an example, if you have a resource that you consistently get more efficient at operating, you can consistently use it to provide more and more value to the world (economic growth).

To use his example: if you take a human who would be using material inputs like food, and instead of them engaging in activity that did not provide value to society, they spent their time giving people massages, you have not increased the amount of physical resources being consumed (since the person was otherwise using the same amount of resources, just not doing anything of value).

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

#154

Post by spodek »

Physics > Economics

The Do The Math blog by Caltech-trained UCSD astrophysicist Tom Murphy is the best resource in this area.

In particular the posts

- Galactic Scale Energy https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy

- Can Economic Growth Last? https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/can-economic-growth-last

- The dinner conversation with an economist on this topic https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist

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

#155

Post by vannevar »

JackFr wrote: post #144
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…

Your point is well taken, insofar as manufactured goods, but does not explain the decline in agricultural and construction inputs. In agriculture we're (currently) a net exporter and construction is non-traded.

There certainly may be industries where real dematerialization is taking place, and the author of the article would've been better off sticking with those. Instead the article makes sweeping, unsubstantiated claims across the entire economy that just aren't credible.

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

#156

Post by TeMPOraL »

anon1m0us wrote: post #137
zamadatix wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So then why not just keep putting the same amount of coffee in the can? It's on us though. They're lying to us to get our money, our labor, our consent. We let them. Why?

Because it pays, and for some reason not many people have the guts to say marketing is rotten to the core, and advertising is cancer on the society. Maybe because the market encourages it structurally. Lying costs little and yields good profits, so acting immorally gives competitive advantage.

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

#157

Post by random023987 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #133
lkrubner wrote: post #32

Wages have been mostly flat, so consumers have no extra money to engage in additional buying. Since the Great Recession of 2008, the top 1% of the income distribution have absorbed 125% of productivity gains. This is the reverse of what we saw in the 1940s and 1950s and 1960s when strong labor unions were able to win 110% of productivity for workers, so that the share of national income going to labor increased. Now…

Well... just last night, I was planning a trip. There was a place I could see on Google Maps (satellite view) that looked interesting, but it wasn't clear that I could turn onto it (there might be a barrier or an elevation difference). But Google Street View made it clear that I could turn onto this little dirt road in the middle of nowhere. For free. That isn't wage growth. And yet, I am better off for being able to…

I think most people would prefer to decide for themselves if that's worth the $40,000/yr that they would have had if wages kept up with productivity.

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

#158

Post by codesushi42 »

eutropia wrote: post #21
codesushi42 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's because these things have been replaced by plastics.

At least partially I'm sure that's the case, however it looks like we're approaching the apex of that trend as well: TFA: >> The growth in plastic consumption has slowed down greatly, to less than 2 percent per year between 2009 and 2015. This is almost 14 percent slower than GDP growth over the same period. So while America is not yet post-peak in its use of plastic, it's quickly closing in on this milestone. It wil…

That's irrelevant because plastics are not produced domestically in the US. But the international production explains the decreased consumption of those other raw materials.

This article is misleading horse shit.

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

#160

Post by benibela »

r00fus wrote: post #132
breakbread wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

It's not consistent. Sometimes they $/lb sometimes they price $/item - for the same class of item. It's as often design to mislead and prevent comparison as it is to inform you that "store brand is definitely cheaper than name brand". Since none of it is mandated, they do only what benefits their bottom line or they are publicly pressured to.

They do that in the EU/Germany, too

€/item, €/100g, €/1kg are all common

Post reply on HN