Thats a pretty awesome story Only one issue : it's factually false. See this critic of his book "More from less" " This is a well-written book which could be a good book if its key message were supported by research. This, unfortunately, is not the case. Decoupling is a topic that has been studied extensively, with one recent overview finding over 1200 peer-reviewed research papers published between 1990 and 2015. As a result, there exists a voluminous body of research that has used better methods and covers far more ground, both theoretically and empirically, than this book. The conclusions of this research stream are fairly clear, as a recent, comprehensive and well-worth-the-read overview of decoupling research (Parrique et al. 2019) shows: while some decoupling is beyond doubt happening, there is no sturdy evidence that could permit us to believe that _necessary_ decoupling is going on. If we wish to continue our present course and economic growth patterns, we would need to see decoupling that is 1) absolute, 2) deep enough, 3) fast enough, 4) permanent, and 5) global. This is not what research shows, even though there is evidence that some countries have been able to slightly decrease the use of some resources (albeit even this finding diminishes once we account for the increasing financialization of the economy, as Kovacic et al. 2017 find for the EU-14). This book's central message is basically demolished by a single open access article in PNAS (Wiedmann et al. 2015), not to mention other relevant research. Using far more sophisticated methods, informed by past research on the topic, and covering the value chains and countries far more extensively than this book, the Widemann et al. concluded that if the total materials footprint of industrialized countries, USA included, has decoupled at all, the amount of absolute decoupling is insignificant. I cannot find any reference to this rather fundamental piece of research in the book, nor can I find any references to any recent studies that are more critical about decoupling claims. In fact, I cannot find solid evidence, either in references or in the text, that the author is even aware that such research exists. As such, I do not believe that the book's thesis could ever be published in a reputable peer reviewed journal: existing research has already covered this ground repeatedly, with better methods. In a positive note, the author is very clear that market fundamentalism - letting capitalism run amok - is emphatically NOT an answer to the environmental crises, and that we need a strong state to regulate and control the private interests, repair market failures and price the externalities. There is ample evidence that of all socio-economic systems we have tried so far, this approach - sometimes known as the Nordic model - has the best track record of creating and somewhat equitably distributing wealth. That said, I've already noticed that many proponents of this book haven't noticed these caveats, and instead claim that McAfee suggests unbridled capitalism is "the" answer. However, despite rather serious flaws in the key argument, I have no doubt that the book will become a bestseller. We humans are so desperate to believe that nothing needs to change. Janne M. Korhonen PhD, MSc Turku School of Economics REFERENCES CITED Kovacic, Z., Spano, M., Lo Piano, S. and Sorman, A.H. (2017). Finance, energy and the decoupling: an empirical study. Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 1-26. Parrique T., Barth J., Briens F., C. Kerschner, Kraus-Polk A., Kuokkanen A., Spangenberg J.H. (2019). Decoupling debunked: Evidence and arguments against green growth as a sole strategy for sustainability. European Environmental Bureau. Wiedmann, T. O., Schandl, H., Lenzen, M., Moran, D., Suh, S., West, J., & Kanemoto, K. (2015). The material footprint of nations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112(20), 6271-6276."

@hugesinker

3 жыл бұрын

I was looking for some criticism here to investigate, so thank you for that. Granted, I haven't read his book yet, but I have listened to some longer, more indepth talks. Mr. McAfee does two things in more detail elsewhere that lead me to believe that Nafeez Ahmed is off base with his criticism here. First, some of the analysis of decoupling is looking at only US output of things like agricultural products-- where there is very little outsourcing possible. The tonnage of agricultural products produced domestically has gone up steadily, but fertilizer and farm land in use have either plateaued or decreased. In fact, land used for farming is, in part, being returned to a natural state on net. Some other analysis is said to include the entire supply chain from other countries for manufactured goods-- this is for things that are pretty easy to track like raw metals. A central claim of Mr. Ahmed here is that this is not being done at all. That doesn't make sense. A cursory look at some of those references indicate they are not conclusions as extreme as Mr. Ahmed claims. For example, "Decoupling debunked: Evidence and arguments against green growth as a sole strategy for sustainability. European Environmental Bureau." is only concluding that fully depending on dematerialization is not adequate in itself, not that dematerialization is not happening or having any appreciable impact. That's actually consistent with what Mr. McAfee is saying.

@edpowers3764

2 жыл бұрын

You don’t say a thesis is “factually false”. A thesis typically entails various arguments, observations, studies, facts, inferences and conclusions. Sure, you can debate whether those arguments are valid or sound but it’s a bit moronic to say “factually false” when the data he showed was factually true. I think what you’re trying to debate are the inferences and conclusions made from those facts which is a whole different story. Will those trends hold into the future? That certainly is a great counter argument. Does this reversal in correlation between economic output and resource usage hold for all sectors of the economy? Even reading some of those reports you cited, my spidey sense for intellectual dishonesty goes off. How can the geniuses at the European economic bureau promulgate such an obscene lie as “there is no empirical evidence supporting the existence of decoupling…” when it takes a few basic googles to pull up historical time series of such significant observations such as the 50% decline in global kilograms of CO2 emissions per dollar of GDP in the last 70 years. Look up similar time series for water productivity, agricultural productivity, or even the prices of commodities (if you know basic economics you would understand the implication). You cannot make such a bold rejection of the thesis with such observations. I am by no means an expert in environmental economics but I know some things about scientific inference, given I too have a PhD but in the more rigorous field of nuclear fusion physics (ironically this technology will be the final levee that breaks the environmental alarmists doomsday prophecies). Seriously, how can you people be so clearly biased and dishonest in your scientific endeavors? On top of it using the PhD title to strengthen your argument. Kind of pathetic.

some of this is good, but sorry, the buffalo are not back. just because the cherokee can house 100 buffalo (who are actualy hafl cow) doesnt make it...signed Kiowa-Cherokee

I definitely agree that poverty leads towards heavy consumption of resources.

If we continue with the life we live today, we would need 3.4. planets of earth. The capitalized world is driven by overproduction, overconsumption and continuing economic growth. Nobody wants to dispense on any luxury. The stagnating developments of material use let people hope that in the long run, dematerialization leads to less use of fossil fuels and economic growth. But the problem is not solved by dematerialization. By constant economic growth also the use of materials grows, not as much as they use to, but they still grow. Therefore, scientists are sure that the process of dematerialization is not compatible with economic growth. Moreover, the material uses of supposed greener service economies is growing. Furthermore, new technologies which save materials will lead to profits and efficiency. Consequently, the profits will be reinvested, more goods will be produced, and more material will be used. Dematerialization on its own will therefore not lead to a more sustainable economy or less use of fossil fuels. The reason is economic growth. As long as the economy is growing the use of resources will not stop.

Very interesting and aspiring talk. Great presentation job. Not fully convinced by the smartphone argument though : is it really the perfect example for avoiding excessive material consumption ? It seems too me that smartphones still have a huge environmental footprint, and that we over consume / over replace them due to software and hardware programmed obsolescence.

@SimoneCarp

4 жыл бұрын

Yet it's way less than the combination of plastic metals and resources needed for all the gimmicks they replaced, don't you think? And what about emails instead of paper, streaming services instead of VCS or even DVDs, and so on...?

@GB-gu5jz

3 жыл бұрын

also he does not mentioned that since it is a highly symbolically charged object we want to change phone evey 2 years, my granpa had the radio for 60 years

@lavisseregis830

3 жыл бұрын

@@SimoneCarp well, not so sure. Smartphones have a huge carbon / environmental footprint to be build. Multiply this by the number of devices we buy and the rate at which we replace them, add what is needed to build data centers, networks, etc. The « cloud » is a really material and heavily resource-consuming thing. In the end, most of smartphones’ footprint happens when they are build. Also smartphones don’t only replace pre existing stuff (mail becoming email), they tremendously expand it (compare email traffic with paper mail) and obviously create a whole lot of new possibilities that also come with an additional environmental footprint (try to imagine Facebook or Twitter or KZread or WhateverDigital on paper)

I hope this video is kept so future generation will remember his shallow humour

@dinomoviesnstuff

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah the jokes were cringe. but that's ted talks in general. Hope they help out tho.

I'm looking foward to microbial fermentation creating proteins from CO2 emissions.

how has this only 21.961 views?!

I don’t like how “cooking the planet” seems like a joke to the audience 8:42 Has society gone mad? Humanity needs help and it needs it ASAP. Heating the planet up is not a joke it’s a real threat. :(

He spoke at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting at Davos. That is enough for me not to listen to what he says.

Put the video in one word. Easy. BLOCKCHAIN 😉

:u

Good speaking skills, but fundless evidence. We are cooking our earth totally and many animals are facing extinction.

life by 1000 cuts!

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that doomsday crowd would be here to post and remind you to ignore any hopeful evidence of improvement. The comments make it pretty clear. It’s less about solutions to saving the environment and more about dismantling free enterprise - the main reason extreme poverty has dropped dramatically in last 30 yrs. Developed countries are barely growing. It’s emerging economies like China, India, Bangladesh and parts of Africa catching up. Would you tell them not to grow and reduce poverty?

👍

This is factually wrong, material consumption of the USA is continuing to increase, only decreasing for short periods during economic crisis, most recently in 2009-2010. As of 2011 it started increasing again. He is just cherry-picking materials for which this is not true and giving examples of dematerialization in products that represent tiny amounts of the materials we consume. So no, the USA is not dematerializing, it is not decoupling and it will never achieve either of these unless the people the consume the most (i.e. the 25% richest citizens) reduce their consumption dramatically. What it is they have to reduce consumption of? Well, the top 3 activities of a household in terms of material consumption (more than 90% of the materials) are housing (the biggest), nutrition and mobility. So stop owning so many and big houses, stop owning so many cars, switch massively to public transport and eat foods that require less resources and land for their production (land is also a resource).

Great job. 😄⚡😄Dave16.

@mariaelenaduquecardona1663

3 жыл бұрын

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@mariaelenaduquecardona1663

3 жыл бұрын

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@mariaelenaduquecardona1663

3 жыл бұрын

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@rosamelchor9702

3 жыл бұрын

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How MIT scientist can be so wrong??