Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

> Research shows biodiversity suffers at the hands of economic growth due to increased resource consumption and pollution

I don't think that's entirely clear. There's a concept in economics called dematerialization. From wikipedia: Dematerialization refers to the absolute or relative reduction in the quantity of materials required to serve economic functions in society.

The idea is that as a country becomes more developed and prosperous, the less resources are required to serve the needs of the people. For instance: Between 1977 and 2001, the amount of material required to meet all needs of Americans fell from 1.18 trillion pounds to 1.08 trillion pounds. The incredible thing is that this seems to be a reduction in absolute resources not resources per populace. Much of that reduction is due to technology (e.g. a cell phone replaced plastic from camcorder, camera, computer etc). The other is due to production efficiencies and migration to cities . A similar trend can be seen with carbon reduction in developed parts of the world.

I'm not 100% convinced by this idea, but it's enough for me to question the premise that economic growth leads to more resource consumption.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dematerialization_(economics)

[Edit] There's a great interview with Andrew McAfee on this concept at EconTalk. Its based on the McAffe's book More from Less that explores the topics. He mentions a few limitations of the idea including environmental concerns

https://www.econtalk.org/andrew-mcafee-on-more-from-less/

Modern cars take less metal and gasoline to run, for example, both of which are environmentally harmful to produce.

A podcast episode on precisely this phenomenon, titled "more from less": https://www.econtalk.org/andrew-mcafee-on-more-from-less/.

> moving to cities

You're absolutely right about de-materialization, but just on this point, migration to cities is probably about over (excluding suburbs, which will probably grow). Most people who aren't in dense areas are happy outside them, because the fact is a very large number of people don't like living in urban areas (those who do are grossly over-represented on this web site.) [0]

[0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/12/18/americans...

They're happy living outside them with their current level of access to cheap energy. If we address the need to fight climate change, cities might become much more comfortable to live in, given the economies of scale their population density allow.

Current access to cheap everything! As a whole, the suburban lifestyle has a greater reliance on the fruits of globalization.

I don't think we're guaranteed a future where we can rely on globally sourced cheap products materials and labor.

Not making any predictions about that, though. Just saying that if globalization wasn't a thing, cities would be more important.

Why should cities become more comfortable ? Just make up policies that forces/incentivizes people to move to the city and voilà.

How about people who don't want to live in a dense urban environment, no matter much an economist tells them that the "economies of scale" of a city are more favourable for the statistical model they happen to believe in the most?

The air pollution problem that commuting causes may be negated in the future with increases of working from home. I don't see how energy is significantly cheaper in the city vs. in suburbs or rural areas, aside from transmission costs. To which economies of scale do you refer, and how would cities become more comfortable? I assume maybe you mean cheaper? Housing costs, for instance, aren't actually lower, people just live in disgustingly small spaces.

I think you're mistaken about the inclinations of the average person. People like having a decent amount of living space. I don't think most would want to give up a back yard.

> You're absolutely right about de-materialization, but just on this point, migration to cities is probably about over (excluding suburbs, which will probably grow).

There's absolutely no way of knowing this, and, quite frankly, the argument that most people are happy outside of them pales in the face of the post-pandemic economy and how that will materially affect suburbanites.

So far I think it's anyone's guess how things will shake out, though I'm still hoping for a "return to normalcy" with reduced trust in the government. Do you have a different theory on how things will look going forward? If so, I'd appreciate a different perspective.

I don't know to what degree normal is possible going forward: were seeing massive unemployment amongst an already highly economically precarious population. I think the only thing I can really see is a rebirth of mass politics, likely going in the rights favor in 2022 midterms and 2024 election. It's the only thing that makes sense to me for an empire in decay. Either that or pulling a British empire and becoming a lamprey on whoever the next hegemon is, but I think we've already seen what that looks like in regards to all the outrage over american companies, Hollywood, etc "cow-towing" to China and Americans don't like it.

The wheels of history are in motion, so not one of us really knows anything.

If this was true, then living in a city would cost about the same as living in a suburb. (Or even less, since city dwellers require fewer resources, as mentioned above.) As it stands, living in a city is significantly more expensive, and yet many people do it. Job growth has been focused on cities for a while now, and that trend does not seem like it is changing.

Conflation of "resources" with supply-and-demand. Living near the ocean doesn't use more resources but it's priced higher more because people want to live there bidding up prices. Similarly living in cities cost more because people want to live there (in aggregate).

Well, on the one side, you've got a Wikipedia article whose sole source is a Reason.com article from 2001.

On the other side, you've got everyone who ever studied this issue, showing that consumption measured by any statistic at all is on a constant upward trajectory. For example, a 2019 UN report:

"The Global Resources Outlook 2019 builds on this body of evidence to present the story of natural resources as they move through our economies and societies. It is a story of relentless demand and of unsustainable patterns of industrialization and development. Over the last 50 years, material extraction has tripled, with the rate of extraction accelerating since the year 2000. Newly industrializing economies are increasingly responsible for a growing share of material extraction, a situation largely due to the building of new infrastructure. Virtually none of the massive growth in materials consumption in the new millennium has taken place in the wealthiest countries; however, not much of it has taken place in the poorest countries either, which make up the group in the most urgent need of higher material living standards."

-- Global Resources Outlook 2019

So, which one do you think is true, the Reason.com article from 2001 or the UN report (and every other entity that has ever studied this)?

One example is not using wood or charcoal for cooking or heating as economies mature. Also, though double edged sword, moving from subsistence farming to Corp farming is more land efficient.

Does this apply to energy though, which is the main cause of climate change? Economical growth seems quite correlated to energy consumption, and I have yet to see serious articles showing how energy consumption can be decoupled from economical growth. And of course by that I mean world-wide. Developped countries delocalizing production (thus energy consumption) to China should be taken in account.

The problem is exponential growth.

Even if we invent warp drive the problem is still exponential growth.

Once we invented artificial nitrogen fertilizer it took about two centuries to go from less than one billion to about ten billion. At the same rate it will take about two centuries to reach 100,000,000,000 and two more to reach a trillion.

Something has to give.

Something already gave. The fertility rate in the US and Europe are below the population replacement rate. The fertility rate in China is below the population replacement rate. About the only place it isn't is Africa, and give them office jobs and better access to birth control and it would be there too.

It's actually becoming a problem the other way, because the fertility rate is dropping too fast, and then you end up with a top-heavy population which has too many retirees and not enough working-age people to support them.

The amount of material required may drop, but the amount of material actually used definitely increases. This argument is a bit disingenuous because it implies that our resource usage has reduced when in reality the opposite is quite true. Unfettered capitalism optimizes to create the most wealth, not necessarily the highest efficiency. It's much easier to grow wealth by tapping new resources, which is why there are constantly hundreds of billions of dollars at work doing so.

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