Malthus and Global Warming

[Noclevername]

the cases where it does not apply is in cases where costs are increased. the reason for that is because when a goods becomes more expensive it is used less. that is the market for this resource is diminished.

Or when people decide to stop buying said goods. Some things just become unpopular.

[Antice]

Or when people decide to stop buying said goods. Some things just become unpopular.

yes. but when people decide to not buy one gooods they end up buying something else instead. this makes populaity trends just another example of a market shift instead of a real reduction in total consumption. Energy acts differently than this. people can choose to buy less energy directly, but in the end they will consume their economic capability's worth of energy embodied in the form of goods and services.
There really is no way around it when it comes to energy costs and it's effect on the global economy. we either find a new source of cheap energy or our economy goes into a big recession. (hint: it's already in a global recession due to increasing energy costs. it's the only explanation that actually fits the evidence perfectly)

[Noclevername]

yes. but when people decide to not buy one gooods they end up buying something else instead.

And they can choose to buy less, or to buy something that costs less energy to make.

(hint: it's already in a global recession due to increasing energy costs. it's the only explanation that actually fits the evidence perfectly)

Please provide that evidence. The prevailing theories about the global recession all have to do with mismanagement, not energy costs. See this thread for details.

[Antice]

And they can choose to buy less, or to buy something that costs less energy to make.

It's a closed system, just like weather patterns on this planet belongs to a single closed system. they can choose to buy whatever they like, but do not forget that manual labour is also a form of energy, and so is food. and the price you pay for these is strongly affected by primary energy prices. it is not a coincidence that whenever oil prices go up then so does food prices.
Moving away from unstable fossil fuel prices as a primary energy source is actually good economic policy regardless of envcironmental concerns.

Please provide that evidence. The prevailing theories about the global recession all have to do with mismanagement, not energy costs.

Everyone knows about the failure in the banking industry. and it did have a big impact, but that was at worst a temporary setback. and it was in fact mostly limited to the US. (we ofc do get a hit when our US investements fail like that, but it was not that big of a deal. those who lost the most were big investors who could afford to loose quite a bit of money like that and not go belly up.

You need to look outside the US as well however. look at what nations are doing well despite the global tendency towards a recession, and then compare those with those who do extra poorly. the most common theme is that nations doing poorly have a very high cost of electricity. (greece, italy), while nations who are doing great have cheap electricity. (see Norway, who is actually growing it's economy thanks to cheap energy)

I do not have a handy chart to show you atm. I'l hunt around for one, or try to put one together myself. I got to re-find that site with all the global statistics again.

[Noclevername]

the most common theme is that nations doing poorly have a very high cost of electricity. (greece, italy), while nations who are doing great have cheap electricity.

Correlation is not causality. Nations doing poorly economically have more expensive everything. That is one result of doing poorly.

[Joe Durnavich]

There is a clear increase. From 1900 to 1970 running 10-year mean of this index varied roughly around -5. After 1970 it has varied roughly around +5 to +10. This change can quite easily be seen also in annual mean graph shown in the page you linked to.

Ari, what am I missing here? -5 is drought conditions and +5 to +10 is not, right? We were talking about an increase in droughts (or at least I thought we were).

[Noclevername]

It's a closed system, just like weather patterns on this planet belongs to a single closed system.

Wrong. Weather is open to solar variations.

[Antice]

Wrong. Weather is open to solar variations.

I was not referring to the energy input, but rather the material movement of the system, (that is what weather is. water and air in motion). a closed energy cycle would violate entropy ofc. My wording was poorly chosen i guess.

[Noclevername]

I was not referring to the energy input, but rather the material movement of the system, (that is what weather is. water and air in motion). a closed energy cycle would violate entropy ofc. My wording was poorly chosen i guess.

I don't understand the point of considering only the materials and not the energy input. Without that there is no movement.

[Ari Jokimaki]

Ari, what am I missing here? -5 is drought conditions and +5 to +10 is not, right? We were talking about an increase in droughts (or at least I thought we were).

That's true, my mistake.

[Ara Pacis]

It think it might be easier to think of energy in terms of a consumable product instead of "energy" to avoid confusion with other forms of energy. Energy as a product needs to be produced and packaged and delivered in a usable form, so it's difficult to look at sunlight as energy in the current paradigm, even if you have solar panels, because the solar panels make you a producer and packager and distributor of energy, otherwise you're electric and electronic devices wouldn't work.

I'm not familiar with the paradox mentioned above, but it makes sense if we're able to distinguish between efficiency and innovation. I would define it thus: Efficiency reduces the cost of a current process but an innovation introduces a new process. Email has replaced a lot of the post, parcel, telephony and facsimile processes and uses less net energy, thereby reducing costs, but it has also allowed more people to use it and it's related infrastructure needs thereby creating new businesses and related activity. Energy being frangible, the comparison for efficiency then might be in how an office conducts business now versus how it conducted business then, but the changes are really based on technological innovation. Of course, one might say that an innovation in shrinking silicon ICs might be an innovation instead of merely an increase in efficiency, so it really depends on the level of abstraction you use.

[Noclevername]

It think it might be easier to think of energy in terms of a consumable product instead of "energy" to avoid confusion with other forms of energy. Energy as a product needs to be produced and packaged and delivered in a usable form, so it's difficult to look at sunlight as energy in the current paradigm, even if you have solar panels, because the solar panels make you a producer and packager and distributor of energy, otherwise you're electric and electronic devices wouldn't work.

I'm not familiar with the paradox mentioned above, but it makes sense if we're able to distinguish between efficiency and innovation. I would define it thus: Efficiency reduces the cost of a current process but an innovation introduces a new process. Email has replaced a lot of the post, parcel, telephony and facsimile processes and uses less net energy, thereby reducing costs, but it has also allowed more people to use it and it's related infrastructure needs thereby creating new businesses and related activity. Energy being frangible, the comparison for efficiency then might be in how an office conducts business now versus how it conducted business then, but the changes are really based on technological innovation. Of course, one might say that an innovation in shrinking silicon ICs might be an innovation instead of merely an increase in efficiency, so it really depends on the level of abstraction you use.

You have a point. Energy ubiquity is not the same as useable energy availability.