I definitely appreciate the main point: "On a macroeconomic scale, increased efficiency leads directly to growth." And I agree that the core problem is civilization and its values.
That being said, when I read "Bright Green Lies" I found this chapter to be the least compelling. That's because, unlike other chapters which correctly and exhaustively described the inevitability of environmental destruction caused by particular technologies and the manufacturing processes that support them, this one is describing a social phenomena, which in my mind makes it not inevitable. That is, no matter how you slice it, producing steel or solar panels or wind mills or building dams is just ecocidal, full stop. But the Jeavons Paradox, as real as it has been so far, is in a different category. We can imagine a world in which efficiency *does* lead to less consumption and ecocide; in which, for example, insulating every home leads to less energy use overall. And yes, this would require very different social/economic relations, including a rejection of the values that have guided civilization since the Neolithic Revolution. While such a transition can certainly seem improbable right now, enslaved as we are in the clutches of civilization, I don't consider it impossible. Indeed, perhaps it is inevitable that in time such a transition must happen, if only for logistical reasons (a crash). It's my own aim that we will collectively realize we must change, and that we will then choose to bring our society down for a soft landing rather than a crash. Efficiency would be part of that because using less is a necessity for such a soft landing.
So as unlikely as it might feel right now, I'm holding out that we will recognize the Jeavons Paradox as a feature/bug of civilization, but not as an inescapable outcome, and that we will choose to live another way.
I offer this critique as someone who appreciates your work (as you know), and who appreciates it enough to take the time to spell this out.
Thanks for this comment, Kollibri. I appreciate it, and I agree completely. If that wasn't clear from the chapter, then that was a failure in our writing process (for as proud as I am of the book, it certainly has some errors and oversights). I think the chapter was and is important because of how efficiency is treated as a solution within status quo discussions and plans. But yes, I think your point is a good one.
PS - the reason for my slow response is that I was just up doing some hunting in NE Oregon, in an area that is close to both of our hearts. Wild food is such a blessing.
PS - I decided to edit the title of the post, which was intended to be provocative and counterintuitive, but which wasn't accurate. The new title better reflects this discussion. It's a small change, but I think an important one.
Oh, how I enjoyed this article! Thanks so much for writing it.
It reminds me of a story I once heard. Let me preface: I'm not sure how true it is, and I am liberally adding details--also I hate colonialism in North America. But I think it's a good allegory.
A European colonial immigrant arrived in North America in the spring. Excited by the richness of the land, he soon settled himself in a thick forest near a rushing river full of huge fish.
The European man traded goods with the peaceful indigenous people he met. He bartered with metal axe heads and firearms where previously only bone, wood, and flint tools had been known. The tribespeople eagerly traded with the European man, offering him salt, beautifully decorated pottery, and waterproof hides in exchange. Throughout the spring and summer the European celebrated his good fortune and he built himself a log house and made his lofty plans.
As winter approached, all inhabitants of the land gathered supplies in preparation for the coming months of cruel cold and snow.
The industrious European worked day and night to put by as much smoked meat, firewood, and animal pelts as he could gather. Soon his cellar was crammed to bursting with goods, and so he set to work digging another cellar to store more things. He'd make his fortune selling his goods to the other white settlers!
One Autumn day the European man saw a tribesman resting with his back against a tree. The man was whiling away the hours, snoozing and carving a flute for one of his children. The European man scoffed. He asked the tribesman how one could be so lazy when there were still several weeks to gather supplies before the first freeze.
The indigenous man replied, "Why should I kill myself working when we have all we need? The meat and wood were collected quickly with our new tools. My children are fat, and my wife and sisters are feasting! Why do you continue to break your body when surely you already have enough put by for one man?"
The European immigrant was deeply amused by this tribesman's childlike ignorance.
So the white man shook his head and toiled on alone. He toiled until his beard rasped with ice and his toes turned black and fell off one by one. He toiled in his stinking boots and he heaved and coughed and hauled and chopped and hoarded, even as he smelled the roasted meat and heard the happy songs of men and women feasting. Fools! Sloth and laziness!
The white man was comforted by his superior wisdom. He soothed his shaking arms dreaming of the beautifully dressed woman, the jingling coins, and the fine carriages he would one day have at his command.
In spring all that was left of the European man were the two rich caches of carefully buried goods. The wolves had scattered the rest.
This is such an important article. I was aware of Jevons paradox, and of Taylor before, but this is a deep dive into two of the most pernicious ideas at the heart of our culture. Efficiency and the belief that more renewable energy and more efficiency are the solutions to our current crisis. Illich had some really interesting ideas on energy usage in the first chapter of his book. The idea that by exceeding the capabilities of the human body by the artificial use of 'energy slaves', no matter whether that is by, actual slaves, fossil fuel, or use of 'green' technologies, is by itself corrupting. He talks about how the Roman ideas of slavery have been smuggled into our ideas of energy usage.
I would be really interested in hearing you engage with this and whether an ethics of energy usage could be based on whether what could be easily and productively done by a human beings, should by delegated to 'energy slaves' instead and what this would mean for town planning and work. For instance the concept of 15 minute cities which would encourage individuals to walk rather than use the 'energy slaves' of cars, a view in which the energy capabilities of humans was an integral part of the design process.
On another note whether the idea of incorporating human bodily capabilities proactively into design of technology, rather than the default of assuming that eliminating muscular effort is an automatic end goal of all progress. For example, a violin is designed around the human ability to exert selective pressure via the hands, and the human body as an integral part of the music making process but an electronic keyboard treats the human hand as an incidental input and the posture of the player as irrelevant.
If you would like to collaborate on such a piece, then I'd be very interested, but I'm sure that you'd be more than capable of exploring it yourself!
Hey, thanks for the comment. Surprisingly, I've never read Illich, although all I've heard has made me want to. But I'm familiar with the concept of energy slaves, which is an important and powerful idea. I think the idea of living within our energy means is essential. Feel free to shoot me an email (see https://www.maxwilbert.org/contact/) if you want to discuss.
Thanks, Max, for yet another thoughtful, informative, and well written piece, however, nothing about the central first cause of predatory capitalism, environmental destruction, and climate collapse: too many humans using too many natural resources and producing too much pollution. We are today 3,000 times more numerous than were our last ecologically balanced and self-sustaining Hunter-Gatherer/pastoralist ancestors just 10kya. What could go wrong? Everything?
Hey Greeley, thanks for the kind words! We talk somewhat extensively about overshoot in the book, but not in this particular excerpt. It's a centrally important issue and lens.
Increased efficiency to do less, or to do the same with less, or to do more with less, requires a comprehensive set of policies to achieve a set of objectives. Allowing outcomes to be determined by price and market mechanisms is a recipe for chaos.
Since it is unlikely that agreement would be found with regard to objectives, authoritarian methods would have to be used. It all goes downhill from there.
It’s not increased efficiency per se that is a problem, it’s our relationship to it. It’s about the nexus of efficiency and our desires, goals, comforts and conveniences.
"The steam engine developed by the Scotsman James Watt (1736-1819) from 1769 was much more efficient in terms of power and fuel consumption than earlier models, and it significantly increased the possible uses for this key invention of the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840)."
final paragraph:
"Steam engines brought success for inventors like Watt, and they brought great profits to manufacturers and other business owners as the costs of labour were reduced and economies of scale were achieved in production. Other benefits were seen in agriculture, where mobile steam engines became extremely useful at harvest time or for such large projects as draining fields. Steam power allowed the new railways to connect people as never before, and faster transportation made consumer goods cheaper. The coal and steel industries boomed to feed the steam engines and provide the raw material for the things they made. There were, too, many less positive effects. Skilled textile workers lost their jobs to power looms, as did those who ran stagecoaches, coaching inns, and stables as the trains took over from traditional transport methods. Urbanisation accelerated, and towns and cities became crowded and polluted places to live. Mechanised factories were noisy and often dangerous places to work. But there was no going back. Machine power, of whatever source, became so indispensable it is today nigh on impossible for us to imagine what life was like before the great steam revolution."
I definitely appreciate the main point: "On a macroeconomic scale, increased efficiency leads directly to growth." And I agree that the core problem is civilization and its values.
That being said, when I read "Bright Green Lies" I found this chapter to be the least compelling. That's because, unlike other chapters which correctly and exhaustively described the inevitability of environmental destruction caused by particular technologies and the manufacturing processes that support them, this one is describing a social phenomena, which in my mind makes it not inevitable. That is, no matter how you slice it, producing steel or solar panels or wind mills or building dams is just ecocidal, full stop. But the Jeavons Paradox, as real as it has been so far, is in a different category. We can imagine a world in which efficiency *does* lead to less consumption and ecocide; in which, for example, insulating every home leads to less energy use overall. And yes, this would require very different social/economic relations, including a rejection of the values that have guided civilization since the Neolithic Revolution. While such a transition can certainly seem improbable right now, enslaved as we are in the clutches of civilization, I don't consider it impossible. Indeed, perhaps it is inevitable that in time such a transition must happen, if only for logistical reasons (a crash). It's my own aim that we will collectively realize we must change, and that we will then choose to bring our society down for a soft landing rather than a crash. Efficiency would be part of that because using less is a necessity for such a soft landing.
So as unlikely as it might feel right now, I'm holding out that we will recognize the Jeavons Paradox as a feature/bug of civilization, but not as an inescapable outcome, and that we will choose to live another way.
I offer this critique as someone who appreciates your work (as you know), and who appreciates it enough to take the time to spell this out.
Thanks for this comment, Kollibri. I appreciate it, and I agree completely. If that wasn't clear from the chapter, then that was a failure in our writing process (for as proud as I am of the book, it certainly has some errors and oversights). I think the chapter was and is important because of how efficiency is treated as a solution within status quo discussions and plans. But yes, I think your point is a good one.
PS - the reason for my slow response is that I was just up doing some hunting in NE Oregon, in an area that is close to both of our hearts. Wild food is such a blessing.
Wild food is indeed such a blessing!
PS - I decided to edit the title of the post, which was intended to be provocative and counterintuitive, but which wasn't accurate. The new title better reflects this discussion. It's a small change, but I think an important one.
Oh, how I enjoyed this article! Thanks so much for writing it.
It reminds me of a story I once heard. Let me preface: I'm not sure how true it is, and I am liberally adding details--also I hate colonialism in North America. But I think it's a good allegory.
A European colonial immigrant arrived in North America in the spring. Excited by the richness of the land, he soon settled himself in a thick forest near a rushing river full of huge fish.
The European man traded goods with the peaceful indigenous people he met. He bartered with metal axe heads and firearms where previously only bone, wood, and flint tools had been known. The tribespeople eagerly traded with the European man, offering him salt, beautifully decorated pottery, and waterproof hides in exchange. Throughout the spring and summer the European celebrated his good fortune and he built himself a log house and made his lofty plans.
As winter approached, all inhabitants of the land gathered supplies in preparation for the coming months of cruel cold and snow.
The industrious European worked day and night to put by as much smoked meat, firewood, and animal pelts as he could gather. Soon his cellar was crammed to bursting with goods, and so he set to work digging another cellar to store more things. He'd make his fortune selling his goods to the other white settlers!
One Autumn day the European man saw a tribesman resting with his back against a tree. The man was whiling away the hours, snoozing and carving a flute for one of his children. The European man scoffed. He asked the tribesman how one could be so lazy when there were still several weeks to gather supplies before the first freeze.
The indigenous man replied, "Why should I kill myself working when we have all we need? The meat and wood were collected quickly with our new tools. My children are fat, and my wife and sisters are feasting! Why do you continue to break your body when surely you already have enough put by for one man?"
The European immigrant was deeply amused by this tribesman's childlike ignorance.
So the white man shook his head and toiled on alone. He toiled until his beard rasped with ice and his toes turned black and fell off one by one. He toiled in his stinking boots and he heaved and coughed and hauled and chopped and hoarded, even as he smelled the roasted meat and heard the happy songs of men and women feasting. Fools! Sloth and laziness!
The white man was comforted by his superior wisdom. He soothed his shaking arms dreaming of the beautifully dressed woman, the jingling coins, and the fine carriages he would one day have at his command.
In spring all that was left of the European man were the two rich caches of carefully buried goods. The wolves had scattered the rest.
Thanks for sharing that story, Lara!
This is such an important article. I was aware of Jevons paradox, and of Taylor before, but this is a deep dive into two of the most pernicious ideas at the heart of our culture. Efficiency and the belief that more renewable energy and more efficiency are the solutions to our current crisis. Illich had some really interesting ideas on energy usage in the first chapter of his book. The idea that by exceeding the capabilities of the human body by the artificial use of 'energy slaves', no matter whether that is by, actual slaves, fossil fuel, or use of 'green' technologies, is by itself corrupting. He talks about how the Roman ideas of slavery have been smuggled into our ideas of energy usage.
I would be really interested in hearing you engage with this and whether an ethics of energy usage could be based on whether what could be easily and productively done by a human beings, should by delegated to 'energy slaves' instead and what this would mean for town planning and work. For instance the concept of 15 minute cities which would encourage individuals to walk rather than use the 'energy slaves' of cars, a view in which the energy capabilities of humans was an integral part of the design process.
On another note whether the idea of incorporating human bodily capabilities proactively into design of technology, rather than the default of assuming that eliminating muscular effort is an automatic end goal of all progress. For example, a violin is designed around the human ability to exert selective pressure via the hands, and the human body as an integral part of the music making process but an electronic keyboard treats the human hand as an incidental input and the posture of the player as irrelevant.
If you would like to collaborate on such a piece, then I'd be very interested, but I'm sure that you'd be more than capable of exploring it yourself!
Hey, thanks for the comment. Surprisingly, I've never read Illich, although all I've heard has made me want to. But I'm familiar with the concept of energy slaves, which is an important and powerful idea. I think the idea of living within our energy means is essential. Feel free to shoot me an email (see https://www.maxwilbert.org/contact/) if you want to discuss.
Thanks, Max, for yet another thoughtful, informative, and well written piece, however, nothing about the central first cause of predatory capitalism, environmental destruction, and climate collapse: too many humans using too many natural resources and producing too much pollution. We are today 3,000 times more numerous than were our last ecologically balanced and self-sustaining Hunter-Gatherer/pastoralist ancestors just 10kya. What could go wrong? Everything?
Hey Greeley, thanks for the kind words! We talk somewhat extensively about overshoot in the book, but not in this particular excerpt. It's a centrally important issue and lens.
Increased efficiency to do less, or to do the same with less, or to do more with less, requires a comprehensive set of policies to achieve a set of objectives. Allowing outcomes to be determined by price and market mechanisms is a recipe for chaos.
Since it is unlikely that agreement would be found with regard to objectives, authoritarian methods would have to be used. It all goes downhill from there.
It’s not increased efficiency per se that is a problem, it’s our relationship to it. It’s about the nexus of efficiency and our desires, goals, comforts and conveniences.
Absolutely excellent article! Thank-you!
You're welcome!
wonderfully clear and precise!
You may know about this article already: https://www.worldhistory.org/Watt_Steam_Engine/ :
first paragraph:
"The steam engine developed by the Scotsman James Watt (1736-1819) from 1769 was much more efficient in terms of power and fuel consumption than earlier models, and it significantly increased the possible uses for this key invention of the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840)."
final paragraph:
"Steam engines brought success for inventors like Watt, and they brought great profits to manufacturers and other business owners as the costs of labour were reduced and economies of scale were achieved in production. Other benefits were seen in agriculture, where mobile steam engines became extremely useful at harvest time or for such large projects as draining fields. Steam power allowed the new railways to connect people as never before, and faster transportation made consumer goods cheaper. The coal and steel industries boomed to feed the steam engines and provide the raw material for the things they made. There were, too, many less positive effects. Skilled textile workers lost their jobs to power looms, as did those who ran stagecoaches, coaching inns, and stables as the trains took over from traditional transport methods. Urbanisation accelerated, and towns and cities became crowded and polluted places to live. Mechanised factories were noisy and often dangerous places to work. But there was no going back. Machine power, of whatever source, became so indispensable it is today nigh on impossible for us to imagine what life was like before the great steam revolution."