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Modeling the Economy As a Physics Problem
University of Utah physicist Tim Garrett has published a study that approaches the economy and its relation to global warming as a physics problem — and comes to some controversial conclusions: that rising carbon dioxide emissions cannot be stabilized unless the world's economy collapses or society builds the equivalent of one new nuclear power plant each day. The study was panned by economists and was rejected by several journals before its acceptance in the journal Climatic Change. "[Garrett discovered that] Throughout history, a simple physical constant... links global energy use to the world's accumulated economic productivity, adjusted for inflation. So it isn't necessary to consider population growth and standard of living in predicting society's future energy consumption and resulting carbon dioxide emissions. ... 'I'm not an economist, and I am approaching the economy as a physics problem,' Garrett says. 'I end up with a global economic growth model different than they have.' Garrett treats civilization like a 'heat engine' that 'consumes energy and does "work" in the form of economic production, which then spurs it to consume more energy,' he says. That constant is 9.7 (plus or minus 0.3) milliwatts per inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar. So if you look at economic and energy production at any specific time in history, 'each inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar would be supported by 9.7 milliwatts of primary energy consumption,' Garrett says. ... Perhaps the most provocative implication of Garrett's theory is that conserving energy doesn't reduce energy use, but spurs economic growth and more energy use."
This sounds like Jevons Paradox.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
Though the intellectual in me has trouble denying the truth in your statement, you can have my Nintendo Wii when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers, you damned hippie.
Even in the last 30 years there has been a recognition that high standards of living reduce fertility.
I think I saw an article fairly recently that suggested that as the standard of living increases past some point, this reverses itself and fertility rates start to go back up.
Yes, that was in the news, but when you actually look at the data, the evidence for an upturn in fertility at very high affluence levels is not statistically significant.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The fail was on your comprehension.
What humans are and are not is irrelevant, it has nothing to do with choices, nothing to do with rational behavior.
It's simply saying that each unit of economic production results in the consumption of X units of energy. And that reducing energy consumption on something results not in less energy use but in more production.
Which leads to, if you want to reduce carbon dioxide levels, two choices:
1. Economic collapse.
2. Build obscene amounts of "clean" (in terms of carbon dioxide production) energy generators.
Starvation is a geopolitical problem, not a resource problem. Grain production has consistently outpaced population growth for the past 30 years. Even during last year's food crisis, resource shortfalls were not an issue.
more here: http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm
And this would be a bad thing how exactly?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Please stop using it's when you mean ITS. Please stop using "begs the question" when you mean "raise the question".
I wouldn't worry about that, as the end result of *not* cutting back on energy use is also the eventual destruction of the world economy. We live unsustainably. Oil isn't forever. Nukes aren't forever. Enjoy it while it lasts.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
Dude, do the maths, if you cant be bothered reading EIA reports, 85 million barrels of oil are used DAILY.
Yearly thats a lot of tonnes of oil. all of it gets used.
Alternatives are less than 2%.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Except that the interactions of the human neurons can be understood thought classical physics. The quantum effects that occur within your cells is negligible. Additionally even if they where somehow completely controlled by quantum interactions (Again they're not) you could still predict groups of people and societies as the quantum effects will pushed towards noise and the average expect value will peak. Even for individuals they could be modled as a probability function.
Conservative have also been arguing there is no problem. This article about the CSU hack "fires a polar bear of truth between the eyes of hysteria and communism".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Isn't that exactly the _opposite_ of what this theory states?
The author specifies that efficiency in fact spurs _more_ economic growth. Unsurprising, since our entire society from the dawn of crop cultivation has been based on our ability to get things done more efficiently, thus freeing up time and energy for other work and discoveries. So if you want to grow the economy, work on... economy.
What is somewhat surprising is that the efficiencies gained seem to be immediately taken up by new forms of consumption, so there is never any decrease in resource usage, just a growth in what we accomplish with our endless accelerating depletion of those resources.
An interesting and somewhat troubling thought. In the end we are likely not above nature and a painful equilibrium will be found.
Yeah, right. 10,000 years ago - give or take - New York City was under the Arctic ice cap.
Remarkably there are exactly the same number of people living under the Artic ice cap today as there was 10ky ago.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Consider the food supply. The population has now reached a size at which the current amount of food is not sufficient for everyone to eat well.
Disagree.
(Caloric) energy consumption per capita, 1961
(Caloric) energy consumption per capita, 2001
Those maps are considerably more dense, in both the first and third world, in 2001 than in 1961.
No OS on the planet can protect itself from a user with the admin password. - Yvan256