"Through burning fossil fuels we are unlocking extremely dense forms of
accumulated ancient sunlight. It may not seem like we have an almost
completely "solar-powered" society today; but, we do if you count the
ancient solar power stored in oil, natural gas and coal ... We are quickly drawing down the Earth's stored solar energy in the form
of fossil fuels at a rate that is thought to be anywhere from 100,000 to
1 million times their rate of natural formation. For this reason fossil
fuels are on any human time scale finite ... So much could be produced by the industrial infrastructure and delivered
by the modern rationalized distribution network that customers needed
to be prompted to buy not just necessities, but also what were formerly
considered luxuries ... Enter the rationalization of consumption. In its simplest terms, it
meant getting people to buy things which they didn't need or, at least,
which they didn't yet know they needed. An entire profession emerged to
engender want--engender it in a society in which fewer and fewer people
were experiencing anything which could be characterized as genuine want.
The solution was to invent wants and communicate them through the mass
media to the consuming public in an effort to stimulate consumption.
Most of these wants were linked to various forms of status seeking ... The puzzling thing about this process is that the resulting plenty does
not seem to have increased human happiness commensurate with the
increase in consumption. In fact, major measures of human well-being level off at about 100 gigajoules of energy consumption per person per year. For context, each American consumes about 330 gigajoules per year ... How much food can one person eat without becoming sick? How many cars
can one human drive? How many homes can one person actually live in? ... Which brings me back to "Mad Men" the television series. This is a story
about people who have everything materially, and yet they are
miserable."
Zum Artikel von Kurt Cobb, erschienen auf Resource Insights (2. Juni 2013) »
Zum Artikel von Kurt Cobb, erschienen auf Resource Insights (2. Juni 2013) »
