The Jeavons Paradox (or, The Reason We’re Screwed)
Reading: The Efficiency Dilemma (which you can read HERE!)
The better (more efficient) we are at doing something industrial (using coal power, increasing miles-per=gallon), the more we end up doing it. That is, rather than see an overall decrease of gasoline consumption due to more efficient motors, we see a net increase in fuel consumption – more people driving more hours. The more electricity we can squeeze out of coal, the more plants we build, the more power we use.
Here's a picture of Jimmy Carter, for some reason.
There’s just one small neuron that makes this link happen in the brain. Just one tiny bit of information – the better we are, the more we are – is the turning point for the rest of society and civilization. You’re heard me repeat the adage: “If you’re driving to Mexico and you actually want to go to Canada, just slowing down won’t actually help.” That is, if we need to become a sustainable society, simply minimizing non-sustainability won’t actually help – at the very best, you’ve just postponed utter destruction for a while. Where we need to go is in the exact opposite direction, and the only way we’re going to get there is by stopping entirely, turning around, and going the other way.
With the addition of the Jeavons Paradox, we see the worst of it: by simply slowing down, we actually speed our trip up. By conserving fuel, we can drive longer and get more cars on the road, increasing this mass migration to Mexico while Canada slips farther and farther away.
What do you think?
To me, it says one thing: An unsustainable system cannot be retrofitted to sustainability. The very system itself must become something completely different. Anyone who totes themselves as a “green” or “environmentalist” or anything like that, and is all in favor of increasing the efficiency of our current systems needs to stop, read this article, and think very seriously about the wisdom of making a bad machine better at what it does.
In the meantime, the only author I’ve read who actually understands the repercussions of what I’ve just said is Derrick Jensen, and even he stops short of instigating the full-scale revolution that’s needed.
Ah… will I, when that day comes?
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