Jevons, food for thought

Ponder the Jevons Paradox. As David Owen (if you like smart contrarians, always look for him in The New Yorker) put it in "The Efficiency Dilemma," in the December 20, 2010, issue of The New Yorker magazine:

In 1865, a twenty-nine-year-old Englishman named William Stanley Jevons published a book, “The Coal Question,” in which he argued that the bonanza couldn’t last. Britain’s affluence and global hegemony, he wrote, depended on its endowment of coal, which the country was rapidly depleting. He added that such an outcome could not be delayed through increased “economy” in the use of coal—what we refer to today as energy efficiency. He concluded, in italics, “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.”

Some, if not most, economists and environmentalists assert that the Jevons Paradox has little effect in the modern world. But, as Owen notes, no one has ever really studied all the variables that go into a macro-study. And it would be impossible to calculate. Owen says the Jevons effect is essentially the history of civilization. It happens all the time, in many ways.

It's only common sense, isn't it? Cheap gas? Hummers galore. Expensive gas? Less driving, smaller cars.

Eh?

still here

still dreaming of albatrosses

or pondering the dead weight of shallow abundance

abundance, empty

Tiffany & Co. has a large ad in The New York Times (page A3, March 20, 2010) for a "butterfly brooch of diamonds and sapphires set in platinum."

"Spring Is In The Air," reads the ad's headline, accompanied by an image of the beautiful piece of jewelry.

Price?

$56,000.

Who buys this?

The same people who complain about taxes they cannot afford?

The same people who lament excess [excess!] on the part of government trying to serve its constituents?

I do not dispute the right of anyone to sell this, nor of anyone to buy this. Free market. Laissez-faire. All that. I am not disputing that right legally or morally. After all, I don't know: perhaps the person who buys this also writes, moments later, a check to Doctors Without Borders, for Haiti relief.

Perhaps.

I make no further comment.

Pause for reflection.

Reflection.

That's all.

why the rage why the fear

The recent healthcare vote was revealing.

One side enraged; the other defensive. One side spiteful; the other tentative. One side stiff; the other bending.

These perspectives were recently revealed in recent Gospels heard in church.

The Prodigal Son. The jilted brother.

Mary washing Jesus' hair with perfume; Judas counting cost.

Fear and rage.

Tears of rage.

Fear of what? Losing privilege? Fear of finding out the basic truth that life ain't fair? Fear of losing comfort. Fear of reality?

Fear breeds anger.

Fear comes from change. Some people fear it.

It is the law of nature.

Rage against it if you will; it is inevitable.

Fear not.

Healthcare?

Just a metaphor.

The Tea Party Republican House of Fear and Anger.

A house with a narrow door, a chilly hallway, a dark vestibule.

Come on in; there's always room for more fear.

Fear not, we are told.

Fear not, he proclaimed.

Seems the evangelical crowd forgot.

Fear.

Not.

Twenty Subjunctives

1. We might have. 2. I could if 3. You never would have 4. He should 5. She should not 6. If it were 7. Would that we were 8. You may if 9. It's have time you stated 10. If they had only said 11. Would that I could 12. If I were a rich man 13. They might be dwarfs 14. If only we acted 15. Might I inquire 16. come what may 17. May God bless you 18. Woe betide 19. May the best man or woman or woman or man win 20. Come Monday, until death do us part

vindication

It is not stretching the elasticity of truth to say that AlbatrossDreams was on to something from the outset, from its very first post. In the broadest sense, we detected the early fissures that led to the financial nuclear fission explosion (or is that fusion?). Not saying we were unique in doing so.

Well, have not posted here in a while.

How I have.

I'm still kicking.