Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Intensity Of Human Environmental Impact May Lessen As Incomes Rise, Analysis Suggests
ScienceDaily (Aug. 26, 2008) — The richer you are, the more of the world’s resources you can afford to consume. But in many parts of the world, rising incomes are not having the proportionate effect on energy consumption, croplands and deforestation that one might expect, a new 25-year study shows.
By examining a variety of government and industry data spanning 1980 to 2006, Rockefeller University’s Jesse Ausubel and his colleagues say that dematerialization — the declining consumption of energy and goods in comparison to a country’s gross domestic product — is actually driving a trend toward rising environmental quality. The results are published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Intensity Of Human Environmental Impact May Lessen As Incomes Rise, Analysis Suggests
ScienceDaily (Aug. 26, 2008) — The richer you are, the more of the world’s resources you can afford to consume. But in many parts of the world, rising incomes are not having the proportionate effect on energy consumption, croplands and deforestation that one might expect, a new 25-year study shows.
By examining a variety of government and industry data spanning 1980 to 2006, Rockefeller University’s Jesse Ausubel and his colleagues say that dematerialization — the declining consumption of energy and goods in comparison to a country’s gross domestic product — is actually driving a trend toward rising environmental quality. The results are published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
[...]
Perfect timing for the global economic bone crushing thud...
Great notion though...on paper. _________________ 500 MPH into a brick wall - me
Joined: Sep 25, 2004 Posts: 4723 Location: Boston, MA
Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 9:02 pm Post subject: Re: Intensity Of Human Environmental Impact May \/ As Income
If the culture shifts away from wasteful consumption and towards personal fulfillment, a rich society need not be a wasteful society.
Productivity increases should result in fewer hours worked and more time for the things that we enjoy. Instead we squandered those productivity increases and bought more cheap plastic premade landfill from China.
But so long as people judge their lives by the stuff they own and the stuff they want to own...it's not going to work. _________________ "www.peakoil.com is the Myspace of the Apocalypse."
Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 9:46 pm Post subject: Re: Intensity Of Human Environmental Impact May \/ As Income
Quote
“For generations, people have lightened their environmental impact by multiplying their consumption less than their income,”
???? Okay I'm a bit confused how this is supposed to be comforting. We still continuously increase the amount of environmental destruction, just not at the same pace. One could point out that only a small portion of the population lives above what is considered poverty and we are already strip mining the planet.
Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 1424 Location: Seattle
Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 9:56 pm Post subject: Re: Intensity Of Human Environmental Impact May \/ As Income
^
Maybe this will help?
Quote:
An especially striking example is China. Without the dematerialization from 1980 to 2006 by Chinese consumers, actual national energy use in 2006 would have been 180 percent greater, Ausubel says. In India, an initial trend toward poorer environmental performance appears to have reversed. Meanwhile, the effect has also occurred in the United States, France and other rich nations. In the U.S., dematerialization progressed steadily at about two percent a year throughout the study period, regardless of which political party was in power.
In economics, dematerialization refers to the absolute or relative reduction in the quantity of materials required to serve economic functions in society. In common terms, dematerialization means doing more with less. This concept is similar to ephemeralization as proposed by Buckminster Fuller.
Dematerialization is the counterargument to the idea that economics is only about 'more is better.' The idea that more is better, a common activist argument which likens economic logic to the logic of a cancer cell, ignores the differences between inputs and outputs, and it ignores the ratio of inputs to outputs.
Joined: Jan 16, 2005 Posts: 323 Location: Delft, Netherlands
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 2:37 am Post subject: Re: Intensity Of Human Environmental Impact May \/ As Income
Tyler_JC wrote:
But so long as people judge their lives by the stuff they own and the stuff they want to own...it's not going to work.
So what do you suggest? That we all become buddhist monks? Take one look at the fate of Tibet these last few decades and you should understand that disdain of materialism and the embrace of passifism and spirituality are good for only one thing: getting your culture destroyed and your people beaten into a bloody pulp.
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 2:51 am Post subject: Re: Intensity Of Human Environmental Impact May \/ As Income
Quote:
Productivity increases should result in fewer hours worked and more time for the things that we enjoy.
The trouble is that a heck of a lot of people use this leisure time to fly\drive\cruise to faraway destinations which obviously burns up massive quantities of hydrocarbons.
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:25 pm Post subject: Re: Intensity Of Human Environmental Impact May \/ As Income
Cabrone wrote:
Quote:
Productivity increases should result in fewer hours worked and more time for the things that we enjoy.
The trouble is that a heck of a lot of people use this leisure time to fly\drive\cruise to faraway destinations which obviously burns up massive quantities of hydrocarbons.
I don't. I just go hobo-ing across the country on industrial rail...
Joined: Sep 25, 2004 Posts: 4723 Location: Boston, MA
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:17 pm Post subject: Re: Intensity Of Human Environmental Impact May \/ As Income
Nano wrote:
Tyler_JC wrote:
But so long as people judge their lives by the stuff they own and the stuff they want to own...it's not going to work.
So what do you suggest? That we all become buddhist monks? Take one look at the fate of Tibet these last few decades and you should understand that disdain of materialism and the embrace of passifism and spirituality are good for only one thing: getting your culture destroyed and your people beaten into a bloody pulp.
I'm not talking about pacifism. I'm talking about each individual refocusing his or her life towards the pursuit of happiness rather than the pursuit of property.
More stuff doesn't mean more happiness. Countless studies confirm this. Once you get beyond a certain level of creature comforts, additional consumption doesn't significantly affect your quality of life.
Rather than work ourselves to death filling endless manufactured wants, we could spend our extra time playing baseball with our children, going fishing, making love, painting, playing music, etc. etc. etc.
It's all about values. You can call me a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
Somehow we let ourselves get brainwashed by the TV People into thinking that we actually need Swivel Sweepers and Bowflex machines. _________________ "www.peakoil.com is the Myspace of the Apocalypse."
Joined: Oct 23, 2005 Posts: 1851 Location: East of Eden
Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:38 am Post subject: Re: Intensity Of Human Environmental Impact May \/ As Income
Quote:
For generations, people have lightened their environmental impact by multiplying their consumption less than their income
Emphasis mine. Please note that consumption is not decreasing, it's still multiplying. (Just not as quickly as income.) As long as that is true, we still have exponential growth of environmental destruction.
Lightened their environmental impact? While multiplying their consumption? WTF are you trying to sell us?
Quote:
An especially striking example is China. Without the dematerialization from 1980 to 2006 by Chinese consumers, actual national energy use in 2006 would have been 180 percent greater, Ausubel says.
This is ridiculous. China is a poster boy for environmental destruction. They're not finished yet - they're planning to build half a thousand new coal plants in the next decade, even with complete knowledge of their already disastrous effect on China's air and the world's climate. But the authors of this "study" are seeing rainbows and popsicles because income there managed to rise even more quickly.
Dematerialization. What a nice sounding word to make us feel better. What's the point? That some countries don't screw up quite as badly as other countries? Or just that things could have been even worse? Well yes, I suppose that's always the case, isn't it? Things could always be even worse.
I'm accelerating toward this brick wall, but look, my income's rising even faster than my speed! If they were rising at the same rate, I would have already hit! Isn't that nice.
Pollyanna bullshit doublespeak, misrepresentation of exponential growth, and ignorance of industry's impact on the environment. I'm disappointed in ScienceDaily for publishing this.
Global environmental destruction is accelerating. As the world gets richer. Our only hope is for the world to get poorer again. Which, of course, it will do. But will it do it in time to give our children half a chance? _________________ "If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst." — Thomas Hardy
Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:04 am Post subject: Re: Intensity Of Human Environmental Impact May \/ As Income
[quote="coyote"]
Quote:
Dematerialization. What a nice sounding word to make us feel better. What's the point? That some countries don't screw up quite as badly as other countries? Or just that things could have been even worse? Well yes, I suppose that's always the case, isn't it? Things could always be even worse.
I'm accelerating toward this brick wall, but look, my income's rising even faster than my speed! If they were rising at the same rate, I would have already hit! Isn't that nice.
Pollyanna bullshit doublespeak, misrepresentation of exponential growth, and ignorance of industry's impact on the environment.
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