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Ian Angus’s Followers (25)
Ian Angus
Born
January 01, 1945
Carbon offsets are undermining real climate action
Offsetting allows corporations to increase emissions, while getting credit for pseudo-reductions elsewhere
More books by Ian Angus…
“The great majority of “consumption” (throughput) does not involve individual product users at all. For example, the average rate at which people produce waste, mentioned above by [Jared] Diamond, is calculated by dividing the total population into the total waste. But since 99 percent of all solid waste in the United States today comes from industrial processes, eliminating all household waste would have little effect on per capita waste. Diamond’s “average rate” is meaningless.”
― Too Many People?: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis
― Too Many People?: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis
“But the real danger is that liberal environmentalists and feminists will strengthen the right by lending credibility to reactionary arguments. Adopting the argument that population growth causes global warming endorses the strongest argument the right has against the social and economic changes that are really needed to stop climate change and environmental destruction.”
― Too Many People?: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis
― Too Many People?: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis
“The assumption that economic expansion is driven by consumer demand—more consumers equals more growth—is a fundamental part of the economic theories that underlie the model. In other words, their conclusions are predetermined by their assumptions.
What the model actually tries to do is to use neoclassical economic theory to predict how much economic growth will result from various levels of population growth, and then to estimate the emissions growth that would result. Unfortunately, as Yves Smith says about financial economics, any computer model based on mainstream economic theory “rests on a seemingly rigorous foundation and elaborate math, much like astrology.”
In short, if your computer model assumes that population growth causes emissions growth, then it will tell you that fewer people will produce fewer emissions. Malthus in, Malthus out.”
― Too Many People?: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis
What the model actually tries to do is to use neoclassical economic theory to predict how much economic growth will result from various levels of population growth, and then to estimate the emissions growth that would result. Unfortunately, as Yves Smith says about financial economics, any computer model based on mainstream economic theory “rests on a seemingly rigorous foundation and elaborate math, much like astrology.”
In short, if your computer model assumes that population growth causes emissions growth, then it will tell you that fewer people will produce fewer emissions. Malthus in, Malthus out.”
― Too Many People?: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis
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