'Extreme frustration' after Bristol activists vandalise 150 vehicles

@Right_is_for_Dickheads

There are folk on the right of politics trying to do the right thing.

actual vandalism (for comparison) 

Live: Fourth speed camera cut down overnight in Cornwall at Longdowns

It happened overnight and followed cameras cut down in a similar way near Helston and at Perranarworthal

https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/live-fourth-speed-camera...

I'm sympathetic but asceticism doesn't tend to take over (for larger, more diverse groups).  Almost on the level of a law of thermodynamics, or Parkinson's / Pournelle's laws of bureacracy - people's consumption and normally their numbers* will quickly expand to use up any advances we make in efficiency or new resources exploitable by technology.

Exceptions are known (e.g. see how societies adapted to colonising islands with scarce resources in the Polynesian expansion) - but rather rare.  And often it doesn't end well, as conspiracies to use less are subject to being overrun (and in some cases eaten) by those who didn't sign up.

A technological example: though powerplants have become more efficient and components have got lighter, over the decades cars have stayed the same weight or got heavier** and require even more resources to make.

Why should humans be different from other animals?  Certainly humans have advanced abilities in forming conspiracies (cooperating) with other humans and to develop tools, but other animals can do the former and we don't always do so very well!  So though we may have pushed through one Malthusian barrier we have and will run up against other limits.

* More recently our lifespans have increased.  Presumably the reproductive rate may fall a bit as people last longer and fail to get out of the way of new people.

** Ignoring here electric cars as they're still evolving and also ones that have deliberately gone the opposite direction and ballooned in size on the outside e.g. SUV types.

Agreed, technology and the Jevons paradox. 

I suspect that UPFs will solve the increasing lifespan problem.

We are not different to other animals so population collapse after the ongoing plague phase seems plausible. It would be good to have some form of controlled reduction, but your first two paragraphs explain nicely why this is unlikely.

chrisonatrike wrote:

A technological example: though powerplants have become more efficient and components have got lighter, over the decades cars have stayed the same weight or got heavier** and require even more resources to make.

safety systems - air bags abs, improved door pillars, better impact protection

convenience - motors where previously manual adjustment was common, air conditioning

space - larger cars

more power - engines are more efficient but the 100 BHP engines common years ago are no longer common. In 1999 I got a company car (corsa) with 55 BHP, I bet nothing has such a small engine now.

Please show your working where all growth is associated with an increased ecological footprint. 
That's a flawed assumption. 

"Define 'growth'" I guess?  If you're measuring over a rather short term perhaps it's possible?  For a carefully chosen meaning of growth.  Do you have a counterexample?

I'm not seeing the assumption though.  Discussion of the theory and observations (which seems logical) - yes.

Humans cooperating / conspiring to use less resources over time is possible - but I'm not sure (due to the above) that it's compatible with "growth".  (Certainly not how our politicians envisage it...)  Using less is possible, just like it is possible for people to drive more carefully.  If everyone did that it would probably significantly reduce road casualties (though I suspect not to zero).  But everyone doing that is just ... very unlikely.

In the context of generally increasing human resource usage I did give a counterexample - but again this appears to be very rare / require some very specific circumstances.  And in my example - after some hundreds of years - resource usage went up as the cooperating culture was violently overthrown.

Secret_squirrel wrote:

Please show your working where all growth is associated with an increased ecological footprint. 
That's a flawed assumption. 

It is up to those promoting growth to prove this could be done without increasing ecological footprint, and preferably whilst halving the footprint to return to sustainability. Mass transportation cycling could play a significant role.

Looks like 1.5°C is toast.

You only have to look at the UK and other parts of Europe to see that continuing economic growth is possible whilst our ecological footprint declines.

Increased efficiency lowers costs and increases profits. This translates into economic growth. Increased efficiency also reduces ecological footprint.

IMHO we are about to reach a tipping point both in terms of global fossil fuel use and global emissions.

Fossil fuel use is now predicted to peak before the end of this decade. Reducing the harm associated with ongoing fossil fuel use by focusing on fossil fuels with the lowest ecological footprint, eg by reducing methane flaring, will accelerate the reduction in ecological footprint.

Rich_cb wrote:

You only have to look at the UK and other parts of Europe to see that continuing economic growth is possible whilst our ecological footprint declines. Increased efficiency lowers costs and increases profits. This translates into economic growth. Increased efficiency also reduces ecological footprint ...

This is definitely in territory where numbers / detailed studies would be helpful... but are you sure you're not falling for a general "ecological nimbysm"?

As in - for our more efficient activity here in the UK we're relying on outsourcing production of both material inputs to process and the energy it requires - ergo "not on the balance sheet here!"

We have certainly made processes more efficient.  However for any industry which has had a certain period of development (thinking of the chemical industries here) after a point while we can still be "more efficient" what we're doing is expanding the resource space - we're shifting to using different - or additional - process inputs or equipment.  The materials are often rarer / have a greater ecological impact to extract and process.  More technologically advanced equipment often requires more detailed equipment itself / more energy / more rare resources.

So the immediate process is definitely more efficient than yore (and garners more profit) and looks "cleaner" (especially - cleaner here) - but ultimately depends upon the use of more resources.

Jevon's paradox certainly isn't a physical law and the direction of travel is not always towards more resource usage ... but that is definitely the overall direction!

You can look at consumption based emissions to take into account offshoring. These are also falling.

Capitalism drives efficiency. If a process uses rare or hard to process materials there is a huge profit motive to adapt that process to use common and cheaper resources. Likewise with energy use, reducing the energy intensity of any process leads to more profit.

Li-ion batteries are a good example of this. Cobalt free batteries are now commonplace. Lithium free batteries are on the cusp of commercial roll out.

In both cases the removal of a rare or difficult to obtain material leads to both cost reductions and reductions in ecological damage.

Capitalism drives exploitation

I agree that what he writes is tripe- it's essentially the basis of 'everything will be all right if we buy a Tesla and we can all drive around everywhere at 100mph', because all the targets are repeatedly moved so they're more than 5 years away and therefore don't exist

Capitalism is driven by profit. While that can encourage exploitation of resources it also ruthlessly seeks out efficiencies.

It is that efficiency that makes capitalism a better fit for reducing environmental harm than its alternatives.

There's a lot to unpick there but essentially a lot of what you describe is a failure of basic regulation.

It's perfectly possible to have full blooded capitalism with minimum wage laws and safety regulations.

Your criticism appears to boil down to the fact that capitalist enterprises cut costs wherever possible. That's also the basis of my point. Why go through the hassle of a dispute with your employees if you can save more money and therefore derive more profit by increasing energy efficiency?

As to your plumbing example, assuming that there is still a market for small scale plumbers, if your highly efficient plumber is sufficiently more efficient than their rivals then eventually they'll increase market share until, either they dislodge the big companies or the big companies copy their efficiencies. Either way efficiency wins.

Rich_cb wrote:

You can look at consumption based emissions to take into account offshoring. These are also falling. Capitalism drives efficiency. If a process uses rare or hard to process materials there is a huge profit motive to adapt that process to use common and cheaper resources. Likewise with energy use, reducing the energy intensity of any process leads to more profit. ...

"Capitalism" is simply about making profit.  It might drive efficiency ... in making money.  (Even that needs qualification of course because we're humans with all kinds of other goals and quirky heuristics, not "econs".  Also I don't know if there is any space where we approach the ideal of the free market - without a whole bunch of other rules.)

The making of profit can drive other kinds of efficiency - we obviously need some kind of feedback loop to motivate that.  (But noting Jevons paradox - if the overall goal is "making profit" then improving efficiency may drive increased consumption which will tend to compensate).

It can mean using less resources, or reducing ecological damage.  But that is not a given without adding other rules into the mix though (e.g. regulation).

...so perhaps this is a case of "the markets here are either too free or not free enough"?