I think Udall’s stance made more sense in the 70s when solar cost 100x more than it does now. Adding a price to carbon will help speed along the transition to renewables, but the low price of renewables alone will eventually win in a market based system. Udall, just couldn’t forsee how lu…
I think Udall’s stance made more sense in the 70s when solar cost 100x more than it does now. Adding a price to carbon will help speed along the transition to renewables, but the low price of renewables alone will eventually win in a market based system. Udall, just couldn’t forsee how lucky we would be to actually end up with renewables being the cheapest form of energy.
I do hear you on the Jevon’s paradox, and it is certainly something we should think about. Not everyone is living bigger though, it’s mostly just old/rich people with young people living much more modestly. That being said, after we get to the point where we’re using 100% renewable energy increasing energy use will not increase global warming in the same way that it does now. Yes more energy use will add heat to the planet, but that is much more benign than adding insulation to our planet in the form of greenhouse gases. It may also bring us to a point where we start to run low on various raw materials, but again I’d much rather have a raw material shortage then worldwide climate change.
Young people are living modestly because they are forced to – a future that awaits us all. Climate change is a force that can’t be wished or politicked away, but I am indeed a pessimist. (your aunt and I both have been heavily engaged on this issue since our college days, and it’s gotten much, much worse. Note that Carter was an environmentalist, and had he won a second term, and gotten the solar panels on the White House roof, we’d all be passive energy assisted today., Instead, he lost his re-election bid to an oil driller. And you may want to notice how our GDP and employment markets track 1:1 the growth in fracking. So it’s unlikely (if not delusional) to think we will act until the climate has begun the frontal assault on the capitalist economies, all of which are in (still-) temperate zones. At that point it will be a two-front war – because billions, not hundreds of thousands – of people will be living in uninhabitable parts of the world, and looking for habitable land, most of which is to the north.
To my mind, we are in the Lend-Lease phase, analogous to the secret build-up to WWII which every politician could see coming but wouldn’t prepare for because of an isolationist population. (Sound familiar? FDR started secret development a decade prior – and that’s what we need, our second great president.)
I mean the whole point of this blog is that people (young, old, middle aged, whatever) can live “modestly” and be happy, healthy and wealthy. It’s true that many people still do believe that consumption will bring them happiness, but don’t discount the significant subset of people who have rejected this. Heck go check out http://www.mrmoneymustache.com for a whole community of people who are reducing their consumption even though they have lots of money in the bank.
Profit Greenly (Post author)
2019-09-09 at 2:05 pm
I think Udall’s stance made more sense in the 70s when solar cost 100x more than it does now. Adding a price to carbon will help speed along the transition to renewables, but the low price of renewables alone will eventually win in a market based system. Udall, just couldn’t forsee how lucky we would be to actually end up with renewables being the cheapest form of energy.
I do hear you on the Jevon’s paradox, and it is certainly something we should think about. Not everyone is living bigger though, it’s mostly just old/rich people with young people living much more modestly. That being said, after we get to the point where we’re using 100% renewable energy increasing energy use will not increase global warming in the same way that it does now. Yes more energy use will add heat to the planet, but that is much more benign than adding insulation to our planet in the form of greenhouse gases. It may also bring us to a point where we start to run low on various raw materials, but again I’d much rather have a raw material shortage then worldwide climate change.
BlueState Uncle
2019-09-09 at 3:13 pm
Young people are living modestly because they are forced to – a future that awaits us all. Climate change is a force that can’t be wished or politicked away, but I am indeed a pessimist. (your aunt and I both have been heavily engaged on this issue since our college days, and it’s gotten much, much worse. Note that Carter was an environmentalist, and had he won a second term, and gotten the solar panels on the White House roof, we’d all be passive energy assisted today., Instead, he lost his re-election bid to an oil driller. And you may want to notice how our GDP and employment markets track 1:1 the growth in fracking. So it’s unlikely (if not delusional) to think we will act until the climate has begun the frontal assault on the capitalist economies, all of which are in (still-) temperate zones. At that point it will be a two-front war – because billions, not hundreds of thousands – of people will be living in uninhabitable parts of the world, and looking for habitable land, most of which is to the north.
To my mind, we are in the Lend-Lease phase, analogous to the secret build-up to WWII which every politician could see coming but wouldn’t prepare for because of an isolationist population. (Sound familiar? FDR started secret development a decade prior – and that’s what we need, our second great president.)
Profit Greenly (Post author)
2019-09-10 at 1:15 am
I mean the whole point of this blog is that people (young, old, middle aged, whatever) can live “modestly” and be happy, healthy and wealthy. It’s true that many people still do believe that consumption will bring them happiness, but don’t discount the significant subset of people who have rejected this. Heck go check out http://www.mrmoneymustache.com for a whole community of people who are reducing their consumption even though they have lots of money in the bank.
BlueState Uncle
2019-09-10 at 10:21 am
Clicks “like” and goes on about his happy life, lived modestly.