Following on from the last post, someone has brought to my attention the existance of the Khazzoom-Brooks postulate. As far as I can understand this points out one of the irrational behaviours that humans show. When referring to energy efficiency, the more efficient the system becomes, the more folk begin to use said system. Obviously this has implications for the Carbon output into the atmosphere.
For instance, if the car we drive becomes more fuel efficient, that is is goes the same distance for less fuel, it is going to save the driver money. The driver, realising the money they've saved is now more likely to go on extra journeys that they wouldn't have before because of this. Indeed, the Khazzoom-Brooks postulate states that the driver will now use their car so much more that they end up being responsible for more Carbon than before the new technology was in place. If we apply the same principle to heating of the home, energy generation, etc. we can see that the more efficient we become the more we actually consume, producing more carbon than before.
So, yesterday I was saying that technology may not be the answer. Today, with the Kazzoom-Brooks postulate, it looks as if technology might actually cause us to produce yet more carbon.
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2 comments:
There's an interesting but brief discussion of Khazzoom-Brookes in Monbiot's book 'Heat' on page 61. He outlines the postulate, but in the end says throughout his book that we need to embrace technology as one amongst many potential avenues we must explore. He categorically doesn't say, as so many often do (for example Wallace Broecker in the final chapters of his 'Fixing Climate' book), that it is the way to save the world, but indicates that we must not turn our backs on it.
I think he's spot on on this. After all, it is now an absolute impossibility to return to some kind of 'pre-technological' world. There's some really interesting research being done on early humans which shows that even they used simplistic forms of technology, and that these in turn had effects on their environments. And Bill Ruddiman suggests that even early human food production 10,000 years ago might have impacted on our climate to such an extent as to have postponed an ice age.
In short, technology is a tough nut to crack on the environmental front - very much a case of 'can't live with it, can't live without it'. I think Monbiot has dealt with it better than any other 'popular' environmental writer I've yet read, but I really like this idea of bringing Derrida to bear on the topic.
Dan
Ha! So our super-inefficient (at least in terms of human effort) heating system of wood-burners really is the best?
:-)
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