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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

#181

Post by CharlesColeman »

breakbread wrote: post #129
IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #116

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. 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.

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

They do an absolute shit job of it, because there are no standards or regulations. Most times I see this, similar items next to each other on the shelf are using different "standard" units making comparison impossible (e.g. price per ounce vs. price per piece). I've even seen two sizes of the same brand/product use different "standard" units on the grocery store price label.

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

#182

Post by TeMPOraL »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #103
orthecreedence wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Gee, why is there a pool of water on the floor ever since the rain started? Do you think maybe the roof is leaking?" "Don't be silly! Just because there is water dripping from the ceiling doesn't mean there is a leak in the roof. Things just get wet sometimes. I'm sure there's a wonderful explanation besides the roof leaking. No sense in hiring someone to come look at the roof either. That would be a waste of resour…

case in point - did I say I am not believing that climate is changing? but no, as soon as one contest the wild exponential predictions, he gets scourged.

The pessimistic outcome of climate change isn't "wild exponential predictions", though. There are well-understood mechanisms, the margin for temperature increase beyond which modern society collapses is pretty thin, the exponent comes primarily[0] from our economy which has an assumption of exponential growth built-in and will collapse if it suddenly turns into s-curve, and we also have a model of a runaway warming feedback loop as our neighbor in the Solar System.

Also worth remembering is that climate change isn't really about climate. It's about our society. Earth doesn't care about temperature, and life on Earth will happily survive whatever we can possibly throw at it this century. All that matters is that climate change puts pressure on societies around the world, and with enough pressure our entire civilization will collapse, and you and me and everyone else we know will die a horrible death.

--

[0] - There are also environmental feedback loops ready to take over the growth of average temperature that have gained attention recently.

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

#183

Post by NeedMoreTea »

tialaramex wrote: post #131
IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #116

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. 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…

Is coffee really per 500g? That's a weird quantity. I'd expect kilo or 100g. The UK used to require bread to be 400g or multiples (so a regular sized loaf of bread is 800g) but it eventually got rid of that rule. Obviously years ago (this rule was hundreds of years old) it will have been some amount in an obsolete unit rather than grams, but once metrication happened the bakers picked 400g as the replacement size. I'…

Bread used to always be 1lb (454g) and 2lb (908g) loaves. They shrank a little with the move to metric. :)

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

#184

Post by freeflight »

nostrademons wrote: post #171
spodek wrote: post #154

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/economis…

I read those and conclude "Physics is not a particularly relevant constraint on economic growth." His energy analysis concluded that at 2.3% growth rate and current technology, we would need to use the entire energy supply falling upon the earth's surface within 275 years. Improving technology might be able to stretch that to 400 years. Within 1400 years, we would need to use the entire energy of our solar system. Bu…

The demographics issue makes this whole situation such a massive paradox.

On one hand, we want all those extra humans to generate "economic growth" to keep our perpetual growth train going.

On the other hand, the environmental consequences of that seem already unbearable for our biome right now.

It's like we want to have our cake and eat it too, it just won't work. If we want to "save the planet" then we need to let go of this insane idea of perpetual economic growth we supposedly only can solve by throwing more human bodies at it.

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

#185

Post by megaremote »

xyzzyz wrote: post #178
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…

A lot of it is due to sticky prices. Customers don't like seeing the number on the label go up, so the companies do what they can to keep the product quality the same at the same price point, which results in reduced quantity. The alternative is to reduce quality, which usually results in a death spiral.

Also, a great way to trick people into buying less.

> The alternative is to reduce quality, which usually results in a death spiral.

Or increase cost.

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

#186

Post by Nasrudith »

shawn-butler wrote: post #93
colechristensen wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corn yields have been going up a bit more than 1.5 bushels per acre since hybrid breeding started in the 1930's going from a steady ~25 bu/acre to >170/acre today. Farmers haven't just been adding a bit more fertilizer and water every year, and it has been going on long before computers. Many factors go into it: soil management with tilling practices and fertilizers, pest and weed management, improvements in irrigati…

>> Farmers haven't just been adding a bit more fertilizer and water every year, Nice to believe and it is certainly what growers should be doing, but the evidence clearly indicates that they really aren't. Nitrate levels in the Mississippi are directly correlated to nitrogen use in agriculture and in the upper Mississippi River and Missouri River, flow-normalized nitrate concentration and flux have increased steadily…

You are assuming farms are the only or current main source of nitrates just because there is a correlation. Overtreated lawns and golf courses could have taken up the slack of farming usage for one. The other sectors need to be factored in for nitrate content.

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

#187

Post by TeMPOraL »

andrewmutz wrote: post #179
TeMPOraL wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an accounting trick, though. It works because people are willing to pay for a massage and not for whatever the person was doing. But to actually grow the economy, you have to continuously retask that person to ever more profitable activities. You can also create growth by moving money in circles increasingly fast. Question is, how far we can push bullshit jobs before people get fed up with it? I'm not convinc…

It's not an accounting trick. Different ways a person spends their time genuinely provide different levels of value to society. If a doctor spends his time saving lives or spends his time watching television, the impact on the world's material resources isn't that different, but the amount of value to society is much greater if he is saving lives.

Again, to have economic growth you actually have to have growth. Once you get everyone doing the things that yield maximum economic value, you no longer have growth. You'd have to make more people (exponentially, under current economic regime), which costs physical resources.

As an aside, when talking about economic growth we're looking at economic, not social value, and it so happens that saving lives is one of the less valuable things. You can determine it by looking at the paychecks of doctors or ER personnel.

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

#188

Post by megaremote »

analogwzrd wrote: post #130
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?...

I love the idea of someone having to use a globe in their job.

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

#189

Post by pjmorris »

xyzzyz wrote: post #178
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…

A lot of it is due to sticky prices. Customers don't like seeing the number on the label go up, so the companies do what they can to keep the product quality the same at the same price point, which results in reduced quantity. The alternative is to reduce quality, which usually results in a death spiral.

I think consumers would be more willing to see the number on the label go up if they saw the number on their paychecks go up. Wages in the US peaked about 1968, a number of forces have been working to reengineer that deal ever since.

Similar to your point, executives don't like seeing the number on their costs go up. Isn't it possible that quality could take a hit in how the executive chooses to reduce costs?

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

#190

Post by TeMPOraL »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #95
josinalvo wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without growth above the population growth, life becomes zero sum or negative sum. That means that taking and fighting becomes more rewarding than building. It is either growth or war, no way around it.

Or simply reach peak population growth which is a common occurrence on the small scale. With population at a steady state, there is nothing GDP needs to outgrow.

Except interest rates. Things would be nicer if our economy didn't depend on paying back interest with economic growth.
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