As a concrete example, let’s imagine that sending an email is equivalent to sending a letter. Let’s ignore the infrastructure required to send emails (computers, satellites, etc) vs. letters (mail trucks, post offices, etc), and assume they’re roughly equal to each other. Then the invention of email eliminated the vast majority of letters, and the atoms they would have been made from.
Couple this with the fact that emails are more durable, searchable, instantaneous, free, legible, compatible with mixed media, and occupy only a miniscule amount of physical real estate in the silicon of the computer, and we can see that emails not only reduce the amount of atoms needed to transmit a letter, but also produce a lot more value.
In theory, we might spend the next several thousand years not only finding ways to pack more value into fewer atoms, but also enhancing our ability to derive value from the same good or service. Perhaps in 10,000 years, checking my email will be a genuine pleasure!
In fact, come to think of it, this is the thesis of More from Less by Andrew McAffee, who points out that in numerous categories of material products, we’ve seen global GDP growing while using less material resources, in both relative and absolute terms.
Edit: though see multiple 1-star reviews from non-anonymous Amazon reviewers with economics PhDs who say the core premise of McAffee’s book is incorrect. Sounds like there is better research out there than he presents in this book.
An alternative point of view is in Decoupling Debunked, which seems to feed into degrowth literature. Makes me worry that both McAffee’s and this piece will suffer from the same issues we find when we look for a consensus viewpoint among economists on the effect of the minimum wage.
We find that relative decoupling is frequent for material use as well as GHG and CO2 emissions but not for useful exergy, a quality-based measure of energy use. Primary energy can be decoupled from GDP largely to the extent to which the conversion of primary energy to useful exergy is improved. Examples of absolute long-term decoupling are rare, but recently some industrialized countries have decoupled GDP from both production- and, weaklier, consumption-based CO2 emissions.
There’s a few one-star Amazon reviews for the book that suggest McAfee’s data is incorrect or misleading. Here’s a quote from one of them, which seems like a solid counterargument to me:
“However, on the first slide on page 79, he notes that the data excludes impact from Import/export of finished goods. Not raw materials but finished goods. He comments that Net import is only 4% of GDP in the US. Here he makes a (potentially) devastating error – (potentially) invalidating his conclusion.
While Net imports is indeed around 4% of GDP, the gross numbers are Exports at approx. +13% and Imports at approx. −17%. So any mix difference in finished goods in Export and Import, can significantly change the conclusion. It so happens that US is a major Net importer of finished goods e.g. Machinery, electronic equipment and autos (finished goods, with materials not included above in the consumption data). Basically, a big part of US’ consumption of cars, washing machines, computers etc. are made in Mexico, China etc. They contain a lot of materials, not included in the graphs, upon which he builds his conclusion/thesis. So quite possibly, there is no de-coupling.”
As a concrete example, let’s imagine that sending an email is equivalent to sending a letter. Let’s ignore the infrastructure required to send emails (computers, satellites, etc) vs. letters (mail trucks, post offices, etc), and assume they’re roughly equal to each other. Then the invention of email eliminated the vast majority of letters, and the atoms they would have been made from.
Couple this with the fact that emails are more durable, searchable, instantaneous, free, legible, compatible with mixed media, and occupy only a miniscule amount of physical real estate in the silicon of the computer, and we can see that emails not only reduce the amount of atoms needed to transmit a letter, but also produce a lot more value.
In theory, we might spend the next several thousand years not only finding ways to pack more value into fewer atoms, but also enhancing our ability to derive value from the same good or service. Perhaps in 10,000 years, checking my email will be a genuine pleasure!
In fact, come to think of it, this is the thesis of More from Less by Andrew McAffee, who points out that in numerous categories of material products, we’ve seen global GDP growing while using less material resources, in both relative and absolute terms.
Edit: though see multiple 1-star reviews from non-anonymous Amazon reviewers with economics PhDs who say the core premise of McAffee’s book is incorrect. Sounds like there is better research out there than he presents in this book.
An alternative point of view is in Decoupling Debunked, which seems to feed into degrowth literature. Makes me worry that both McAffee’s and this piece will suffer from the same issues we find when we look for a consensus viewpoint among economists on the effect of the minimum wage.
A more optimistic 2020 peer reviewed article on decoupling, “A systematic review of the evidence on decoupling of GDP, resource use and GHG emissions, part II: synthesizing the insights”, claims:
There’s a few one-star Amazon reviews for the book that suggest McAfee’s data is incorrect or misleading. Here’s a quote from one of them, which seems like a solid counterargument to me:
“However, on the first slide on page 79, he notes that the data excludes impact from Import/export of finished goods. Not raw materials but finished goods. He comments that Net import is only 4% of GDP in the US. Here he makes a (potentially) devastating error – (potentially) invalidating his conclusion.
While Net imports is indeed around 4% of GDP, the gross numbers are Exports at approx. +13% and Imports at approx. −17%. So any mix difference in finished goods in Export and Import, can significantly change the conclusion. It so happens that US is a major Net importer of finished goods e.g. Machinery, electronic equipment and autos (finished goods, with materials not included above in the consumption data). Basically, a big part of US’ consumption of cars, washing machines, computers etc. are made in Mexico, China etc. They contain a lot of materials, not included in the graphs, upon which he builds his conclusion/thesis. So quite possibly, there is no de-coupling.”
Thanks very much for pointing this out. I hadn’t seen these rebuttals before.