Taking a step back, the notion of 'decoupling' is that the economy as measured by financial transactions increases at a greater rate than energy use. This definition assumes that material use is a function of energy use.
Efficiency gains (waste reduction) are clearly a one-time effect, as physical laws enforce a minimum energy to perform tasks integral to the physical economy like transportation, mining and manufacturing. Eg look at internal combustion engine efficiency gains: significant in the 1980s, negligible today. That's not 'decoupling', but 'rebalancing' the money to energy ratio.
The usual response is that 'substitution' will continue the efficiency gains (eg electric vehicles taking over from ICE). That introduces enough complication to confuse most discussions, but doesn't affect the underlying physical limits at all.
Purely financial transactions are weakly linked to energy (servers and comms consume power, but at a much smaller rate than physical economy activities), and so can in theory be largely decoupled. But so what? We can exchange crypto, derivatives, short videos and cat pictures at ever increasing rates, but that changes nothing about the physical economy that we all by definition are embedded in, and which governs how affluent we feel.
Decoupling is yet another deception by those who wish current high-consumption arrangements to continue for a little longer. As with most topics related to what we term 'economics' it is a sham based on misunderstanding and delusion. The only true solution to continued exponential physical growth is to increase available net energy - nuclear fusion to the rescue!
Я думаю Том Мерфі з Do the Math, а також Georgescu Roegen вв своїх працях чудово показали, що будь яка діяльність – енергетична динаміка.
Варто дивитися на кількісні показники на душу наснлення, ігноруючи показник ВВП. А також джерела походження і кількісні показники позад національного імпорту(наприклад метали що видобуті деінде, чи напівфабрикати, що надходять бо лінії збирання тощо). Крім цього, варто не забувати про втілену енергію у замобах виробництва, верстатах, і всього іншого онтологічного взаємозв'язку.
The economy IS energy, as you point out. If Sweden is growing at the same time as reducing energy consumption, well, it's not. Their energy consumption is outsourced somewhere - someone is consuming that energy on their behalf and they have gamed the model to increase their share of the benefits. This is in fact a big part of the strategy of the USA - aside from the fact that they burn vast amounts of energy themselves, they have gamed the model through various forms of occupation so that a disproportionate share of profits generated by other countrys' burning of energy also ends up in their coffers. It's the strategy of individuals in the middle and upper classes as well, all but subsistence tribals. If all those out there making middle class incomes think they are actually creating five or six digits worth of output, of value, they couldn't be more profoundly wrong. What you are doing is tapping into the energy output of all that oil being burned, as we are as a collective. So it's either this, or the data you've sourced for Sweden somehow hallucinatory, and there's a great deal of that out there now. The bottom line is this: there is for our economy the closest thing to a 1:1 ratio between GDP and the burning of fossil fuels as is statistically possible. Also, we aren't going to find a solution to warding off collapse because collapse IS the solution to where we are in our trajectory today, it's law. We aren't going to subvert the laws of thermodynamics and entropy anymore than any other civilization has. We'd have to find an energy source offering all that oil and the system built around it and several more planets like ours to go with it to avoid collapse, and many have crunched the numbers showing why and how this is an impossibility at this stage, and given the properties of oil, probably any stage. Ours was a one-off ride this time around. I personally believe it would make for more interesting, and dare i say potentially valuable, discourse could we move beyond the "what is the solution here?" phase. There isn't one, other than the same solution to a locust plague. All roads eventually lead to collapse, just as they do to death for individuals. And then something comes along to recondense the dissipated energy to new advantage. With the recovery not a process to be measured on a scale relevant to single human lifespans. All signs today place us nearer the juncture of those roads than we clearly prefer. There is a great deal to discuss, all this being the reality.
Taking a step back, the notion of 'decoupling' is that the economy as measured by financial transactions increases at a greater rate than energy use. This definition assumes that material use is a function of energy use.
Efficiency gains (waste reduction) are clearly a one-time effect, as physical laws enforce a minimum energy to perform tasks integral to the physical economy like transportation, mining and manufacturing. Eg look at internal combustion engine efficiency gains: significant in the 1980s, negligible today. That's not 'decoupling', but 'rebalancing' the money to energy ratio.
The usual response is that 'substitution' will continue the efficiency gains (eg electric vehicles taking over from ICE). That introduces enough complication to confuse most discussions, but doesn't affect the underlying physical limits at all.
Purely financial transactions are weakly linked to energy (servers and comms consume power, but at a much smaller rate than physical economy activities), and so can in theory be largely decoupled. But so what? We can exchange crypto, derivatives, short videos and cat pictures at ever increasing rates, but that changes nothing about the physical economy that we all by definition are embedded in, and which governs how affluent we feel.
Decoupling is yet another deception by those who wish current high-consumption arrangements to continue for a little longer. As with most topics related to what we term 'economics' it is a sham based on misunderstanding and delusion. The only true solution to continued exponential physical growth is to increase available net energy - nuclear fusion to the rescue!
Я думаю Том Мерфі з Do the Math, а також Georgescu Roegen вв своїх працях чудово показали, що будь яка діяльність – енергетична динаміка.
Варто дивитися на кількісні показники на душу наснлення, ігноруючи показник ВВП. А також джерела походження і кількісні показники позад національного імпорту(наприклад метали що видобуті деінде, чи напівфабрикати, що надходять бо лінії збирання тощо). Крім цього, варто не забувати про втілену енергію у замобах виробництва, верстатах, і всього іншого онтологічного взаємозв'язку.
Термодинаміку не обдуриш :)
The economy IS energy, as you point out. If Sweden is growing at the same time as reducing energy consumption, well, it's not. Their energy consumption is outsourced somewhere - someone is consuming that energy on their behalf and they have gamed the model to increase their share of the benefits. This is in fact a big part of the strategy of the USA - aside from the fact that they burn vast amounts of energy themselves, they have gamed the model through various forms of occupation so that a disproportionate share of profits generated by other countrys' burning of energy also ends up in their coffers. It's the strategy of individuals in the middle and upper classes as well, all but subsistence tribals. If all those out there making middle class incomes think they are actually creating five or six digits worth of output, of value, they couldn't be more profoundly wrong. What you are doing is tapping into the energy output of all that oil being burned, as we are as a collective. So it's either this, or the data you've sourced for Sweden somehow hallucinatory, and there's a great deal of that out there now. The bottom line is this: there is for our economy the closest thing to a 1:1 ratio between GDP and the burning of fossil fuels as is statistically possible. Also, we aren't going to find a solution to warding off collapse because collapse IS the solution to where we are in our trajectory today, it's law. We aren't going to subvert the laws of thermodynamics and entropy anymore than any other civilization has. We'd have to find an energy source offering all that oil and the system built around it and several more planets like ours to go with it to avoid collapse, and many have crunched the numbers showing why and how this is an impossibility at this stage, and given the properties of oil, probably any stage. Ours was a one-off ride this time around. I personally believe it would make for more interesting, and dare i say potentially valuable, discourse could we move beyond the "what is the solution here?" phase. There isn't one, other than the same solution to a locust plague. All roads eventually lead to collapse, just as they do to death for individuals. And then something comes along to recondense the dissipated energy to new advantage. With the recovery not a process to be measured on a scale relevant to single human lifespans. All signs today place us nearer the juncture of those roads than we clearly prefer. There is a great deal to discuss, all this being the reality.