Slashdot Mirror
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 fits with an observation by insurance companies (or at least mine, USAA) that building safer cars results in people continuing to drive them to their preferred safety margin. We still end up with about as many crashes (but injuries are less).
Kind of missing the point of the article. The population is a function of the energy consumption which directly correlates to the economy. Ergo; reducing the population will lead to decreased energy consumption, and a collapse in the economy. This is the fundemental problem here, economic growth is directly tied to energy usage. The only way out is a radical reform of the fundemental way our economy is _defined_. Sobering research indeed.
"Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist." -Kenneth Boulding
On a related note, the U.S. Census Bureau World Population Clock just ticked over to 6.8 billion a few minutes ago.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
There's another implication of that theory, and it's one that conservatives have been arguing for some time now: the end result of the current drive to cut back on carbon dioxide emissions is the destruction of the worlkd economy.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
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.
While I can't speak to the validity of the underlying theory as such, a conclusion like this doesn't really come as a shock. The 20th century saw an steady stream of "labor-saving" inventions that are now part of our daily lives, but we don't have more leisure time than our ancestors -- in many cases, we actually have less -- because all of that liberated time was promptly consumed by new forms of work.
Sooner or later, we're going to have to come to terms with our now obsolete species-wide obsession with material acquisition. It made sense before we developed tools and civilization: grab all you can while it's abundant because scarcity is the norm. Now that we have all we actually need and then some, we're just killing ourselves with the byproducts of our superfluous production.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Economists routinely use highly complicated mathematical models on stuff like this, and are just as routinely criticised for it because their simplifying assumptions aren't close enough to reality. Then along comes this bloke and uses a model that's not even based on human behaviour: the economy as a heat engine. No wonder he's been panned. Criticise economic models all you like, but at least the modern ones* have a foundation in human behaviour.
I can see why this gets a run here – scientists are cool nerds; economists are not – but in the end it's a guy doing research outside of his field. Sometimes you get tremendous insights, but most of the time (as in this case) you don't.
* I'm not talking about the physiocrats here, okay?
Disclaimer: I am an economist.
Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
Yeah the first time I saw the "Agent Smith Speech" in the Matrix I thought they had hit that nail a little to close to the head for comfort
"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure."
Sadly he got one thing wrong, we do find an equilibrium, but only by mass slaughter or by having disease run rampant when we pack ourselves in too closely like rats. Just look at how much we "thinned the herd" with WW I and WW II. i think the only reason we haven't already had WW III is that the bomb makes such worldwide conflict too dangerous even for the truly vicious to seriously contemplate. But I have no doubt when the resources get really tight if we don't find a way to get off this rock and get more things will get REALLY nasty.
Of course if you try to limit population growth you will get screams of racism and classism and the PC police will put an end to that. So you get what we have now, the march of the morons, where the stupid breed like bunnies while the smart have few kids if at all. I wonder if in 500 years Idiocracy will be looked upon as a prophetic documentary?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
1) as people get wealthier they don't need as many children to "run the farm", so to speak. They in fact become an economic liability.
2) As people get wealthier their access to health care, proper sanitation etc. becomes easier. This increases the survival rate of their children which reduces the number compensatory pregnancies. In other words, when a child dies a woman's friends, neighbors, relatives, coworkers etc. decide to "have just one more, just in case".
Europe, the US and Japan are all examples of this.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+