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

[GliderGuider]

35. Let's follow your example through

• You switch all your lights to LEDs, and save a few bucks.
  
• You decide not to buy more lighting (that would be rebound, don't wanna do that), so you donate it to DU.
  
• DU takes your new donation and uses it to pay for part of a server expansion.
  
• The new server purchase is part of the business plan at a server company in South Korea.
  
• The server company uses the money from that server purchase to pay part of their workers' wages.
  
• The workers take their wages and buy gas for their cars and food for their tables.
  
• They burn the gas and eat the food

There's your consumption.

It's diffused out, and abstracted through the use of money, but you can't deny that your efficiency let someone else, somewhere else, consume a little bit more. And a whole lot of little bits add up to a whole lot.