Three Objections to Jancovici

Final post, in this series, on Jancovici. I’ll try and move on to more detailed theorists of energy, entropy and economics soon. Here are some responses to people’s objections to his positions.

Objection 1) Jancovici ignores technological development and invention which means that energy can be used with greater effect, or that old ways of doing things can be superseded. For example, nowadays you do not need a car to transport a message, you can use email. Similarly, Energy usage for any activity is not necessarily constant.
This possibility implies economies may be able to increase growth without more energy consumption.

Answer: Technological development does not always occur because we need it. We cannot depend on hope or imagined tech, or imagine that the hoped for technology will be deployable in the limited time frames available to us. If such tech arises then good, but we cannot assume it will arise.

Furthermore, the Jevons effect (the idea that the more energy can be produced cheaply the more will be used), seems demonstrated. There seems to be no evidence that energy efficiency is commonly used in capitalism to reduce energy consumption. Can anyone give an illustration of where more energy could be produced and was not used to produce more of the same, or diverted into producing other goods?

Inventions like the internet may not have reduced energy usage. Not only is massive energy required to power the internet and store data, but internet shopping has massively boosted transport of packages to individual locations and probably increased transport energy demands.

Progress does not always imply the end of all limits. If we could use oil ten times as efficiently as we do now, we will still eventually run out of oil, and it is (perhaps even more) unlikely that we will stop using oil before it runs out.

Technological development may drive a demand for energy, and hence for ‘dirty’ and destructive energy production. It is also the case that dubious financial processes can support, otherwise uneconomic fuel collecting for periods of time, to reinforce the old system. This appears to be the case with fracking, shale oil, tar sands and so on, which seem to be given energy by debt and hope.

This latter point also implies we may also need to look at ‘lock-in’ and ‘path dependence’ as part of our problem, not just because history can limit our options, but because old technology and its organisation frequently supports relations of power, wealth and communication which actively oppose any transformation. Transformation is not simply a matter of people automatically doing what is best for their survival, but of political struggle for the right to survive and change those relations of power, wealth and communication, while dealing with the unintended consequences of established actions and supposedly transformative actions.

Having said that, it appears that renewables are improving in terms of reliability, lifetime, cost and storage costs. This is helpful, but it does not mean it will be enough, or that powerful people and countries will not fight to expand fossil fuel consumption for their, or these companies’, apparent profit, as China, Japan and Australia appear to be doing. There is also a temptation, especially in capitalism, to take cheap renewables which are made without regard to the energy, pollution and waste expended in their manufacture and transport – and thus give the appearance of transformation while keeping up, or even increasing, the pressures for collapse.

If energy availability does affect what we can do, then changing energy availability, without a concerted effort to change social desires and organisations, will lead to protest and discontent.

Objection 2) GDP may not decrease because of lack of energy, but energy usage may decrease because of decline in GDP (as with the financial crisis). When economic activity declines then energy usage will decline.

Answer: It may well be true that a decline in GDP through a financial crisis, or lack of resources etc will depress energy consumption. We know CO2 emissions declined after 2008. But the argument is not that energy availability is the only factor involved in economic activity or GDP, but that Energy availability is a significant economic factor, and should be studied and made part of our models.

One significant point of Jancovici’s argument is that you cannot ignore the effect of limited resources, and that some vital resources can get used up. I also argue that entropy, waste and pollution and its distribution should be part of the models, as these affect (and possibly drive) economic activity and social health.

Everything that is produced, or every service which exists, requires energy for its creation and performance. Without available energy there is no life, no culture, and no human exchange or economics.

Some relationship exists between economic activity and energy availability. It is, therefore, not completely without point to suggest the connection should be admitted, and we should explore how to model it.

Objection 3) It is the contradictions of capitalism that are destroying the world.

Answer: Energy consumption is destroying the planetary ecology because it involves burning fossil fuels, and energy consumption is a direct driver of economic growth and that too is destroying the planet through extraction, destruction and production of pollution (which can be thought of as entropic). This is the case, in many kinds of political and economic systems. This commonality does not mean that capitalism, especially neoliberal capitalism, is not a significant problem. However, we cannot just assume that if capitalism collapses then all the problems will collapse with it.

Capitalism may intensify the problem, because the only value it recognizes is profit. If it is profitable to pollute and destroy, then it will be done, without it necessarily being an unintended effect. In this situation, attempts to constrain destruction will almost certainly be seen as destructive attempts to constrain liberty.

To recap:

1. We cannot assume technological innovation will allow us to generate more energy with less pollution, through some unknown or imagined technology – we have to work with what we have got.
2. Jancovici thinks we should consider nuclear, other people think it is safer and cheaper to go without that. These are both arguments which don’t hypothesise technologies which are untried or uninvented, and so the argument is worth having.
3. The effects of energy availability need to be explored, and factored into our economic models.
4. The effects of entropy, destruction and pollution also need to be explored and factored into our economic models.
5. Once we have carried out the above steps we can then examine how we need to modify or overthrow capitalism, realising that any attempts at reform will be resisted by extremely wealthy and powerful people and organisations. That the change may be necessary for survival does not mean it will arise.
6. It seems unlikely that we can extend current western models of prosperity and daily life to the rest of the world without catastrophic consequences.

Tags: Anthropocene, economics, Energy, technology