Herman Daly's Ecological Economist View Contrasted with the Traditional Economist View of Lawrence Summers and the World Bank

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post of the above title. The abstract reads:

ABSTRACT: In a post “Energy Efficiency, the Jevons Paradox, and the Elephant in the Room: Overpopulation #3,” I contested Podolfsky's claim that my earlier post on that subject treated complex problems ”in terms of simple ideas and, possibly, a single equation exp^t.”

Instead my post merely expressed doubt that enlightened energy efficiency policy by itself could tame the elephant in the room - overpopulation - and did not ignore the Podolfsky's "energy-use gorilla."

Podolfsky responded that ”to call overpopulation THE elephant is at best misleading, and at worst distracting from other very important issues.”

Johnson, responding to all the above, asked if people might agree with this viewpoint:

“Even though population numbers rarely follow pure exponential behavior for very long, they have the tendency towards exponential growth, and the same goes for energy consumption by technological societies in the absence of limitations on energy usage, as clearly shown in Limits to Growth [Meadows et al. (1972)].”

I agree with Johnson's viewpoint, but Lawrence Summers [current Director of the White House's National Economic Council and former chief economist at the World Bank] probably does not, having expressed the opinion that Meadows et al. (1992)] was “worthless,” and that their (and Daly's) diagram of the economic system as part of and within the ecosystem was “not the right way to look at it.”

Summers' and the World Bank's viewpoint is contrasted with that of Daly's in passages quoted at length from pages 4-10 of the “Introduction” of Beyond Growth [Daly (1997].

To access the complete 44 kB post please click on http://tinyurl.com/yj2pmqp.

REFERENCES

Hake, R.R. 2009. “Energy Efficiency, the Jevons Paradox, and the Elephant in the Room: Overpopulation #4,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://tinyurl.com/yj2pmqp. Post of 20 Oct 2009 14:25:15 -0700 to AERA-L, Net-Gold, PhysLrnR, & Physoc.

Energy Efficiency, the Jevons Paradox, and the Elephant in the Room: Overpopulation

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post of the above title. The abstract reads:

ABSTRACT: David Goldstein (2004) has claimed that (paraphrasing):

"enlightened energy efficiency policy can have much greater effects on environmental problems than any of the solutions proposed by Bartlett (2004) - stopping population growth - or Weisz (2004) - close international cooperation, peace, and security.”

The Jevons Paradox (or "rebound effect"): technological progress that increases the efficiency with which a resource is used, tends to increase (rather than decrease) the rate of consumption of that resource would tend to counter Goldstein's claim.

But four reports brought to my attention by Goldstein either neglect rebound effects or regard their influence as relatively small. But even if rebound effects are small can "enlightened energy efficiency policy" by itself tame the ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: OVERPOPULATION?

To access the complete 35 kB post please click on http://tinyurl.com/ylb8tdt .

REFERENCES

Hake, R.R. 2009. “Energy Efficiency, the Jevons Paradox, and the Elephant in the Room: Overpopulation,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://tinyurl.com/ylb8tdt . Post of 9 Oct 2009 11:52:01-0700 to AERA-L, Net-Gold, & Physoc.

The Jevons Paradox

Some blog followers may be interested in a recent discussion-list post of the above title [Hake (2009). The abstract reads:

ABSTRACT: In response to Bartlett's (2004) article "Thoughts on Long-Term Energy Supplies: Scientists and the Silent Lie,” David Goldstein (2004) wrote:

“Enlightened energy efficiency policy can have much greater effects on the problems addressed in those articles than any of the solutions or scenarios that the authors presented . . . .[e.g., stopping population growth as recommended by Bartlett]. . . . .”

But to what extent, if any, is Goldstein's claim invalidated by “Jevons Paradox” (JP): “TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS THAT INCREASES THE EFFICIENCY WITH WHICH A RESOURCE IS USED, TENDS TO INCREASE (RATHER THAN DECREASE) THE RATE OF CONSUMPTION OF THAT RESOURCE”?

Jeff Dardozzi (2009), in his Population Press article on “Jevons Paradox” (JP) states that the comprehensive review Jevons Paradox: The Myth of Resource Efficiency Improvements [Polimeni et al. (2007, 2009)] “clearly supports the proposition that [JP] is present in the US, Europe, and most other economies and that strategies to increase energy efficiency in themselves will do little to improve the energy situation or the ecological crisis.”

On the other hand, Steve Sorrell (2007) in his comprehensive report The Rebound Effect (another name for JP) is somewhat less certain about the influence of JP, writing:

“Rebound effects are very difficult to quantify, and their size and importance under different circumstances is hotly disputed. Also, rebound effects operate through a variety of different mechanisms and lack of clarity about these has led to persistent confusion. In general, rebound effects have been neglected when assessing the potential impact of energy efficiency policies. A key conclusion of this report is that rebound effects are of sufficient importance to merit explicit treatment. Failure to take account of rebound effects could contribute to shortfalls in the achievement of energy and climate policy goals.”

Neither Dardozzi nor Sorrell consider Bartlett's (2004) recommendation to stop population growth as a solution to environmental problems - see e.g., "The Elephant in the Room: Overpopulation" [Hake (2009)].

To access the complete 22 kB post please click on http://tinyurl.com/lf57p2 .

REFERENCES [Tiny URL's courtesy http://tinyurl.com/create.php.]

Hake, R.R. 2009. “The Jevons Paradox,” online on the OPEN AERA-L archives at http://tinyurl.com/create.php . Post of 28 Aug 2009 19:00:23-0700 to AERA-L, Net-Gold, and Physoc. The abstract was also transmitted to various discussion lists.