OF ALL THINGS
Of all things that frustrate efforts to reduce the contamination of our environment and the warming of our planet, the most insidious may be a phenomenon called the “Jevons Paradox,” named after English economist William Stanley Jevons who was writing in 1865 about the history of the use of coal. He observed that the more efficiently coal was burned, the more it was used. In retrospect, it turned out the invention of the Watt steam engine in 1769 may have been a net loss for the planet.
A century after Jevons was writing, as governments began to require manufacturers to make cars that would drive more miles to the gallon, consumers responded by driving cars more miles per year. And more gasoline was pumped and burned, not less. A net loss for the planet?
This “rebound effect” is all around us. As computers have become faster, consumers have used them for more tasks and have spent many more hours per day on computers, not less. They have spent more money on technology, not less. Businesses have seen computing efficiency actually increase their operational costs, not decrease expenses. And all this has created more electronic waste, not less.
The humbling point to keep in mind here is that not every efficiency is good for humans, and many efficiencies can be bad for the environment. In our consumerism -- and our environmentalism -- we need to keep this caution in mind.
That’s one of many provocative points in Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2020 “nonfiction novel,” The Ministry for the Future, which suggests that the “tie breaker” for our personal and collective operating systems should be to pursue not just what seems good for you or me at the time, but rather, “what’s good for the land” and for the people who will inherit it.
What’s good for the biosphere, rather than just what’s good for the bottom line.
Written By: John E. (Jack) Roberts, MMLC Board Member