[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
Re: Yuri receives hypocrite of the week award (was Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy)
Atanu Dey <atanu@are.Berkeley.EDU> wrote in article
<57n9gc$d0f@agate.berkeley.edu>...
> Rick & Bea Tarara (rbtarara@sprynet.com) wrote:
.
>
> : The money and ENERGY requirements needed bring the entire world up to
> : American and Western European standards of living are staggering. Even
>
> Why on earth the entire world should have the standard of living
> seen in the US? It is inefficient and wasteful. What I would
> rather see is that no one should have to rummage through garbage
> heap for survival while some others live lives of thoughtless
> excessive inefficient consumption. The present situation is not
> Pareto optimal by a long shot and therefore improvements can be
> made given the political will.
>
Well the problem is that it all goes together. You don't get adequate food
supplies, medical care, sanitation facilities, educational institutions,
etc. without all the other trappings of a industrial/post-industrial
society--and of course you need an economy that can afford these
'necessities' as well as maintain them. To do all that you need to use a
LOT of money and a LOT of energy. Notice my original post pointed out that
it would take about 5 times current energy output to sustain the world at
U.S. usage, and only 3 times at a 'Western' standard. Trouble is, 3x is a
HUGE, HUGE amount of energy. For example, all the Hydro projects in the
world account for only about 3% of the world's CURRENT energy use. Triple
that use and there are real problems.
It is also not quite fair to talk about how inefficient and wasteful the
U.S. is--especially in terms of energy. A careful study of energy use per
capita (compared to economic well-being) will show that FOR THE SIZE of the
country, the U.S. is NOT atypical, and in fact better than many. The
problem with a large country is that huge amounts of energy are necessary
to move goods, people, and services around that large country. Countries
with high population desities such as Japan CAN be more efficient, but at a
human/pschological/sociological cost. It is also not clear when looking at
energy efficiency numbers how the accounting is done for countries that use
a lot of IMPORTED raw materials. What country gets 'hit' with the energy
costs of mining and transporting such materials. Countries such as
Switzerland can maintain a high living standard with a low energy cost
largely because the energy intensive industries that help maintain that
living standard are in Germany, France, Italy, etc.
To be sure, energy efficiencies can be improved almost everywhere, but to
look at Japan's numbers and simplistically compare them to the US is
misleading and ultimately unfair. On the other hand, few (if any) 16 year
olds need to own cars, most motorized 'sports' and recreational vehicles
are clearly LUXURIES, being able to eat 'fresh' tomatoes in January in
Minnesota is also a luxury, etc., etc. BUT, these capabilities ARE (for
better or worse) how we tend to measure 'standard of living' and striving
for such THINGS is behind the incentives of free-market economies (on which
there are a number of other cross-posted threads now ongoing).
Rick Tarara
P.S.--yes, better to leave anti-religious treasties for the dozens of
newsgroups that wallow in such.
References: