{"id":2206,"date":"2005-06-26T14:26:00","date_gmt":"2005-06-26T13:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/avbp.net\/?p=2206"},"modified":"2005-06-26T14:26:00","modified_gmt":"2005-06-26T13:26:00","slug":"sustainability-and-economy-do-not-mix-on-cheap-oil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/?p=2206","title":{"rendered":"Sustainability and economy do not mix on cheap oil"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">You need to understand that sustainability and economy do not mix when you treat energy as an endless resource like any other.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">I know that we are preaching the balance between bottom line, environment, society and health but at the same time we recognize that the economic ideas society is based on are counter sustainable and that we are in a serious system fix.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Take this example: Suppose one day people decide to go for lift-sharing in a big way. I am sure commuting and other trips could be organized with say three \u2013 four people in each car, but for the sake of argument let\u2019s say average two per car.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">That would result in an overnight halving of petrol consumption.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">That would mean a reduction in road maintenance costs and need for new road building.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">It would also reduce the need for new cars, garage services etc.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">That would bring about a reduction in tax income to the government.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">At the same time oil companies, car manufacturers and sales and service companies would have an excess of staff and start to lay them off. Even less tax income to the government, and increased outlay for unemployment.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Possibly they could find new work in lift sharing Internet and mobile Internet application companies, but a lot of that could be done with IT.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">These unemployed would spend less and government income would shrink even more bringing the need for higher taxes.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Now, if you double taxes on oil at the same time it starts to make sense. Still more unemployment but the government can afford it.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">But then you need the government to create jobs. That\u2019s hard when energy prices are up, as jobs start to get outsourced to nations with cheap labour and energy.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">At the same time there is always a lot that needs doing in society.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Try to turn it any which way you can, you will see that as the age of cheap energy ends we need new thinking and a change of system.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">If you ask us of course, we will point to the\u201dgo along society\u201d we envisaged earlier. Click on the link if you missed it earlier.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You need to understand that sustainability and economy do not mix when you treat energy as an endless resource like any other. I know that we are preaching the balance between bottom line, environment, society and health but at the same time we recognize that the economic ideas society is based on are counter sustainable [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-envisioning"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}