(TED Talk) Amory Lovins: A 50-year plan for energy

[GliderGuider]

24. What evidence?

I haven't seen any yet. I've seen some assertions by Lovins that nobody "gets it" but him and his supporters. I've seen some assertions (all the commentary in OK's post was blogger opinions, BTW) that if the right systems are chosen and the system boundaries are arranged just so, then rebound effects within the system can be shown to be small. From there, it's an exercise akin to curve-fitting to draw the conclusion that rebound is unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

I've seen a fair bit of evidence that rebound is real. Hell, even one of the Lovins sycophant blogs admits that. Simple logic tells me that something is driving the growth of civilization, and that something is energy. If both human activity and energy consumption increase even in the presence of increasing energy efficiency (which is demonstrated), it's a very small logical step to the position that rebound is playing some role in it - if not within the boundaries of some particular energy system, then within the wider "system" of global human activity.

I'm not saying that all the energy savings stemming from efficiency will be lost to other human activity, but I'm not convinced that there is any ultimate net benefit to human civilization or the biosphere at large from energy efficiency. To me the fact that we're continually using more and more energy (except when the economy goes into decline) - and destroying more and more of the planet in the process - supports my position. If anyone can present non-blog evidence that the rebound effect is not hurting the planet, I'm all ears. But as I said, I haven't seen any yet.

I get that you disagree with my position. But you're not presenting evidence, you're presenting ad homs.