{"id":13618,"date":"2015-10-20T09:01:21","date_gmt":"2015-10-20T14:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=13618"},"modified":"2015-10-20T09:01:21","modified_gmt":"2015-10-20T14:01:21","slug":"appropriate-scarcity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=13618","title":{"rendered":"Appropriate Scarcity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Appropriate Scarcity<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n

\u00a0 \u2026 appealing to people to restrain themselves [by] self-enforced abstinence alone is a waste of time. By and large, we consume as much as our incomes allow\u2026. changes\u2026 cannot take place without constraints that apply to everyone rather than everyone else. Manmade global warming cannot be restrained unless we persuade the government to force us to change the way we live.<\/p>\n

\u2014George Monbiot,\u00a0Heat<\/em>\u00a0(2006\/2009)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The results indicate that the likelihood of paying a positive amount for supporting renewable energy is higher under a mandatory scheme compared to a voluntary payment option in the UK.<\/p>\n

\u2014Elcin Akcura, \u201cMandatory vs. voluntary payment for green electricity,\u201d\u00a0Ecological Economics<\/em>\u00a0(2015)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"herendeen.3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I believe Monbiot says it true. And Akcura (who knew?) provides research-based confirmation.<\/p>\n

I envision fulfilling, challenging, joyful lives within environmental constraints, but I can\u2019t imagine that happening without societal signals to reinforce consistent behavior. If level of consumption is a problem, then scarcity is a necessary part of the solution. In the least disruptive and potentially fairest sense, this means using prices to determine demand. To cut to the conclusion: my favorite example is a carbon tax.<\/p>\n

Monbiot\u2019s statement is frightening, Draconian, and an apparent non-starter politically\u2026 almost. But the consequence of denying it leads to several futile proposals and viewpoints which permeate the literature, both scholarly and public. They are futile because they do not produce results that are big enough and fast enough to beat back anthropogenic climate change. Hearing them repeatedly frustrates me. These are:<\/p>\n

1.<\/strong>\u00a0We citizens are being sold the idea that economic growth (especially GDP) is good by government bureaucracies that need it to stay alive, and by corporations that want it because they are greedy (e.g., \u201cthe 1%\u201d).<\/p>\n

2.<\/strong>\u00a0We are personally acquisitive because of intensive advertising. Otherwise, we would readily embrace \u201cenough is plenty.\u201d<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Appropriate Scarcity \u00a0 \u2026 appealing to people to restrain themselves [by] self-enforced abstinence alone is a waste of time. By and large, we consume as much as our incomes allow\u2026. changes\u2026 cannot take place without constraints that apply to everyone rather than everyone else. Manmade global warming cannot be restrained unless we persuade the government […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,4,6,7],"tags":[10021,353,10023,391,485,2081,6361,681,7928,10022],"class_list":["post-13618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-liberty","category-survival-2","tag-appropriate-scarcity","tag-gdp","tag-government-bureaucracy","tag-growth","tag-limits-to-growth","tag-marketing","tag-resource-scarcity","tag-resources","tag-steady-state-economy","tag-the-daly-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13619,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13618\/revisions\/13619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}