Justin Lewis is saying more here than even he may be aware of, he is speaking in the context of use of resources as it relates to climate change but the ever increasing exponential use of hydrocarbons as energy first of all and then the use of it as consumer goods (i.e. plastics) disregards it as a finite resource that is constantly shrinking so in turn is unsustainable, and furthermore it is the pinnacle of our whole consumerist economy is based on, and will at some point crash! We are assured that there is plenty more there, where it all came from but indicators like new technology as in fracking/tar sands extraction which have made the costly uneconomically viable, viable says we are going after that which was not feasible in the past. An indicator that the cheap easy pools have already been taken in an industry that relies on exponential growth using more and more of a finite substance! This is typical of the capitalistic model that pushes for short term exponential growth disregarding that it is heading down the road to its own death and destruction, simply for bigger short term profits, disregarding its inefficiencies that will bring about its own eulogy much too quickly! He states in a previous video the intentional planned obsolescence with only incremental increases in desirable attributes. This says little about what is possible but more about how many times a consumer good can get incrementally better in order to sell to you what you already have! The same is true with efficiencies of appliances, equipment, autos have historically only been made as efficient as regulations have required and at minuscule incremental increases! The automobile for example, even with the advent of fuel injection in the 1980s and the addition a computer and more and more sensors to talk to the computer, they still have only made minuscule advances in efficiencies, keeping the plotted fuel/air curve just above what it was previously! Just the existence of a catalyst in the exhaust stream to burn particulates (un-burned fuel) is an indicator of inefficiency! It was curios to me when the Obama administration said a few years ago it was calling for the raising of fuel efficiency standards, the auto industry said they would welcome this! This says much in itself, if it were hard or expensive to do they would have balked on the idea! But instead it seems they are subject to pressures from elsewhere to keep things the way they are and all efforts to change this have been thwarted, taking paths around what few efforts that were made as in the US fuel economy standards/weight classifications were dealt with by increase in weight therefore putting a said vehicle in a higher category! The American transportation fleet in turn is one of the most inefficient in the world!
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 17:11:58 +0000
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