That would be wonderful, alas the data we have suggest otherwise. But if you have ideas of how that decoupling between ressource extraction and growth could work I would glad to hear/read them (for real, I would like to be more positive on those matters).
No [1]. They don’t [2].
> if you have ideas of how that decoupling between ressource extraction and growth could work
The universe of digital goods and services, for one. A few grams of metal and silicon producing as much value today as a car’s worth of steel did a century ago.
[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=10191
[2] https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/07/decoupling-emissions-gdp-us
https://davidmytton.blog/how-much-energy-do-data-centers-use...
2nd, check this link: https://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/11/30/thoughts-on-why-energy...
"3. Rest of the World. This group is the only group showing a favorable trend in energy growth relative to GDP growth, even in the last decade, although the pace of improvement has slowed. Two reasons for this favorable trend seem to be (a) continued growth of services, such as financial service, healthcare, and education, which use relatively little energy and (b) outsourcing of a major portion of heavy industry to Southeast Asia."
iPhones are produced in China. But the profits appear at Apple Inc.
And of course, the data has to be world-wide since the economy is globalized [1].
[1]: https://yearbook.enerdata.net/total-energy/world-consumption...
> The universe of digital goods and services, for one.
Digital goods consume energy, more and more of it. For now gain in efficiency almost (not quite though) offset the growth [2], and that is discarding all the energy and ressources needed to build the servers and chips in the first place.
[2]: https://www.iea.org/reports/digitalisation-and-energy#energy...
We agree on this. But nothing requires the base resource load to increase. That's my point.
Blaming capitalism for our ecological problem is a cop out. It makes it sound like we have to re-engineer our civilization to escape resource over-use. We don't. The changes are simpler. But making it look like our entire financial system has to be rebooted to effect real change helps punt the issue.
And again the data we have shows that GPD is positively correlated with energy consumption. I take your point that it does not have to be this way though, let's just say I am not convinced.
>Blaming capitalism for our ecological problem is a cop out.
Ok I deserved that, it is true that blaming capitalism is a bit of my go to card. But to be fair lets not act like our system of production has no impact on how we consume ressources. You have a point though: ressource over-use is not strictly a problem of capitalism, a thing to keep in mind for the proponent of the fully automated luxury communism utopia.
"The planet has a fever, and the cure is more capitalism, a prominent researcher argues" "This “decoupling” of growth from environmental degradation is showing up in other major economies as well, and even in some developing ones, MIT scientist Andrew McAfee argues in what’s bound to be a controversial new book. He asserts that the phenomenon represents a critical turning point in economic history—and an essential one if we hope to sustain a growing global population without decimating the planet."
https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/06/20/134845/the-plane...
I emailed him that his data is correct but how does his conclusion fit with the fact that the west just outsources energy heavy industries to China and pointed to some statistics supporting my question. He never replied. I think he may have fucked the chicken (as my professor always said, if you did a major f. up in science).