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Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

economist.com

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Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#201

Post by lm28469 »

zajio1am wrote: post #188
lm28469 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> degrowth > it is impossible to convince societies to take massive quality-of-life reductions What about sustainable growth focused on actual quality of life and not on perpetuating a system that produce/consume useless cheap low quality gadgets and services for the sole purpose of keeping the population at work 8 hours a day until they hit 65/67 years old (age by the time 25% of the poorest are already dead) The fa…

People individually choose to buy these 'useless cheap low quality gadgets and services' and work full-time until retirement instead of living frugally and limiting work time (like advocates of FIRE movement). Who are we do prescribe what is best for others?

> People individually choose to buy these 'useless cheap low quality gadgets and services'

After decades of Hollywood propaganda, non stop advertisement from birth, &c. yes sure the "choose" it.

We're still Neanderthals looking for shiny sea shells on a beach, the problem is that it's been weaponised against us.

Do people want to doom scroll social medias ? Do people want this sickening political polarisation ? Do people want to retire at 67 ? Did people agree to bail failed banks in 2008 ? Did people agree to go from 1:6 to 1:1000+ employee:employer compensation over the last 100 years ?

> and work full-time until retirement instead of living frugally and limiting work time

I could keep my lifestyle with 1 day of work a week but no company would hire me for that schedule, but at the same time I'd need to save for 30 years to afford my own place.

Most jobs barely pay living wages, talking about frugality and FIRE seems easy in the techbro bubble but it isn't a reality for the vast majority of people. Unless frugality means living in a 30sqm flat and renouncing on basic things like healthcare, vacations, kids, owning your house, &c. that your grandparents could afford while being 10x less productive than we are today

> Who are we do prescribe what is best for others?

Who are they to prescribe what's best for others ? The propaganda is so deeply rooted that questioning our insane consumerist system triggers allergic reaction such as yours

Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#202

Post by andrepd »

bheadmaster wrote: post #52
andrepd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My god, two incredible leaps in such a short post! You drive a 3-ton SUV, burn coal for electricity, and produce literal mountains of plastic crap in China which get shipped around the world. Don't worry pal, there's plenty to cut back before you need to roll out the forced sterelisation. Second, the population of the developed world is already declining. The population of the world is on track to plateau in the comi…

I'm not your pal, buddy. > Your caricature is just silly. Funny, I feel the same way about yours. Sure, everyone in the world is driving SUVs, flying private jets, and building nuclear reactors in their backyard. Let's stop people from consuming - force everyone to be vegan and eat the bugs! People consuming are the problem - not the military-industrial complex spending enormous amounts of energy on things that have…

Ahaha, good old "if you don't drive a gas guzzler you're a vegan poof". Auto marketing departments are really worth their salt.

>building nuclear reactors in their backyard

If only!

Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#203

Post by was_a_dev »

gandalfian wrote: post #192

Whats remarkable in the UK is how the huge rise in fossil fuel prices has suddenly revealed how many business's are basically converting fossil fuels into goods and services. I mean people understood that putting petrol in the car is fossil fuels but buying a pint in the pub? But suddenly the pubs, and a host of other business's are saying that without the cheap energy their business isn't viable. It's all rather a w…

I really don't think it is that remarkable? The UK's history with domestic coal and then the global oil crisis in the 1970s are clear examples of an economic reliance on fossil fuels.

Both of those historic events are way before my lifetime, yet the concept of the UK economy being highly dependent on fossil fuels and their pricing seems like common sense to me.

Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#204

Post by Comevius »

yesco wrote: post #140
Comevius wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, consumption and energy use went up, not to mention waste. That video game needs 600-700 watts per client and most of it is created very inefficiently, using fossil fuels. People still drive up and down too, and there are more people. > the economy of 2200 The planet will be barely habitable, if at all.

Minor correction but consumer game consoles tend to cap out at 220 watts, and even for PCs 600-700 watts is on the higher end.

That's fair, but you have a game console, a TV, a desktop, a notebook, a smartphone, e-book reader, router and so on.

The average electric power consumption per capita more than doubled in the last 40 years, and keeps growing almost linearly.

Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#205

Post by gruez »

londons_explore wrote: post #132
thelastgallon wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A comment like this comes up in every discussion of renewables and needs to die. We don't need separate stationery storage, enormous storage capacity will be free as car batteries. EVs will have 17 times the battery capacity of stationary storage systems by 2030 [1]. By the time we completely transition to EVs, it will be 100s of times of storage. All this storage capacity is available at zero cost, people buy cars a…

Power prices have been going negative and spiking up 100x in the UK for a decade or more. Yet the vast majority of EV's don't have the ability to discharge into the grid to earn money... Most can't even charge when power is negatively priced unless you pay for a third party charger and service. Basically, Car owners, charger owners, Utility companies, and EV manufacturers would all like to earn the money by charging/…

>Utilities refuse to let home users take part in the minute by minute pricing - instead the best available is dynamic pricing set half hourly a day in advance.

That seems reasonable considering what happened with griddy in texas.

Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#206

Post by londons_explore »

gruez wrote: post #205
londons_explore wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power prices have been going negative and spiking up 100x in the UK for a decade or more. Yet the vast majority of EV's don't have the ability to discharge into the grid to earn money... Most can't even charge when power is negatively priced unless you pay for a third party charger and service. Basically, Car owners, charger owners, Utility companies, and EV manufacturers would all like to earn the money by charging/…

>Utilities refuse to let home users take part in the minute by minute pricing - instead the best available is dynamic pricing set half hourly a day in advance. That seems reasonable considering what happened with griddy in texas.

There are better approaches. For example a supplier could sell you 5 kWh per day at a fixed price, and anything extra you use is at instant market price, with some kind of pay-as-you-use system.

Then if the prices go sky high, users who chose that plan at least get to use 5kWh each day. 5kWh is plenty to not freeze and to keep your phone charged and fridge going. If you want more, you can pay more.

The UK already has a system of electricity meters that have a 'balance', and when the balance reaches zero it cuts off till more credit is added. Such a scheme integrates well with that, and means a user can never rack up a massive unexpected bill if the price goes crazy high or low.

Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#207

Post by gandalfian »

was_a_dev wrote: post #203
gandalfian wrote: post #192

Whats remarkable in the UK is how the huge rise in fossil fuel prices has suddenly revealed how many business's are basically converting fossil fuels into goods and services. I mean people understood that putting petrol in the car is fossil fuels but buying a pint in the pub? But suddenly the pubs, and a host of other business's are saying that without the cheap energy their business isn't viable. It's all rather a w…

I really don't think it is that remarkable? The UK's history with domestic coal and then the global oil crisis in the 1970s are clear examples of an economic reliance on fossil fuels. Both of those historic events are way before my lifetime, yet the concept of the UK economy being highly dependent on fossil fuels and their pricing seems like common sense to me.

Something like a Steel Mill sure. But the idea that something like a Pub is an energy intensive industry surprised me. I think of most businesses these days as being deindustrialized light industry things that only really need a trickle of energy for some led lights and computers. That so many are actually still quite energy intensive disguised by low energy prices surprised me at least.

Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#208

Post by dig1 » 

    A large and growing group of mostly rich countries has severed the link between economic growth and rising emissions of greenhouse gases
Because they outsourced heavy and polluting industries to poorer countries. And I'm not taking into account the greenhouse gases market, were a rich country A can sell it's "consumption level" to poor country B, by selling/donating cheap solar panels or cheap "efficient" wooden stoves, and show in their books that they are more green now.

Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#209

Post by andrepd »

refurb wrote: post #74
andrepd wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>(it is impossible to convince societies to take massive quality-of-life reductions) Why do you say degrowth = lower quality of life? Let me give you a simple and practical example: an American living in a suburb takes her gas-guzzler 3-ton SUV to go shopping or to the park, stands in traffic in a 4-lane freeway for one hour. A Dutch living in a suburb takes her bike to go shopping or to the park, rides it through a…

Who has the better quality of life? I don't know, isn't "quality of life" a personal, subjective measure? The best example I can give is Singapore. Fantastic public transit, high vehicle import taxes (like 100%) and a system where you need a separate permit to own a care that costs >$100,000 for 10 years. And yet no lack of people who buy cars. The people I worked with there all owned cars. They could certainly get a…

The US has about 6× more cars per capita than Singapore.

Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#210

Post by bittercynic »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #81
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #18

Unfortunately, a lot of climate activists’ primary goal is not stopping climate change but rather advocating for degrowth. They are thus vehemently opposed to any solutions that don’t involve massive reductions in consumption. This is not only politically untenable (it is impossible to convince societies to take massive quality-of-life reductions) but also alienates the majority of people from the cause, who might ot…

I am not opposed to any solution that doesn't involve a reduction in consumption. However, I do advocate for degrowth and reduction. Consuming less actually has a lot of net benefits for life. In this regard I think it's good to present some optional ideas and their possible benefits for the average person: * Buying a more modest apartment or house can mean working less or retiring sooner * Close social media account…

>...can mean working less or retiring sooner

I think this is very central to the discussion, and one where many of us are utterly unable to comprehend the other side. Many people see (what I consider) excessive work as virtuous, and think you're committing a terrible sin if you don't work as much as possible. And if you're working all the time anyway, you may as well enjoy the spoils.

When I look at that attitude it seems like some twisted version of the protestant work ethic mixed up with hyper-capitalism, and it seems to contribute to the person's own misery and cause misery for surrounding people.

To them, I'm sure I appear to be a lazy bum. Loafing around and wasting my life, not contributing as much as I could to "the economy".

Is one way objectively better than the other? I don't know, but I'm sure I prefer my way.

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