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  • From: "John Schinnerer" <john@eco-living.net>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] energy futures
  • Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2003 21:13:10 -0700 (PDT)

Aloha,

> personally, I think low-energy use could also be better all round...I for
> one would not advocate keeping our usage levels anywhere near where they
> are, even IF we could...

It may be instructive to note that our high energy usage habits are in large
part a consequence of massive *overproduction* of energy - in an economy that
is dependent on selling all that is produced and where how much is produced is
not strongly linked to actual need.

For example, aluminum smelting (very high energy use compared to other
"common" metals) and ever-increasing use of aluminum in all manner of products
was a "solution" to how to "use" (e.g. sell to get return on dam building
debt/bonds) the massive overproduction of power from the overbuilding of
hydropower dams in the USA.

The era of "cheap power" is partly a consequence of existing economics (as
well as externalized costs, etc.) - too much of anything on the market and the
price goes down.

Likewise in terms of pattern is the economic *necessity* (in the current
system) of selling domestically produced products abroad (thus the need for
the WTO, etc. to force open foreign markets). We produce far more widgets and
thingamajigs than domestic markets can possibly buy, so they *have* to be sold
elsewhere (or it will become all too obvious that the economic emperor has no
clothes...). This has been a "problem" for USA producers of "stuff" since
back when it was thirteen colonies...and other overproducing nations as
well...not a new issue.


John Schinnerer - MA, Whole Systems Design
------------------------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Cultural & Ecological Designing
People - Place - Learning - Integration
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net




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