The Economist ran a story this morning about how increases in lighting efficiency have actually led to increased energy usage over time as people have been more willing to overutilize these technologies.
While this is perfectly rational and somewhat to be expected, it is nevertheless a profound facepalm moment for me, and speaks to the entire notion of energy efficiency and renewable energy by extension; while my aim is to reduce the amount of fossil fuel energy used and its corresponding environmental and social impacts, the realities of the situation is that these advances in many cases simply provide an opportunity for people to just consume more.
(This is an uncomfortable parallel with the Marxist ideal of machines as multipliers of labor that would simply lead to more leisure and self-actualization time for the workers; in reality, the economy just sped up to expect more productivity from workers armed with such technology and no attendant reduction in demands placed upon labor was observed.)
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