Veterans Day...Time to Return the Favor

The rebound effect also known as the Jevon’s Paradox is the term given to the phenomenon that greater energy efficiency and new renewable energy technological advancements will produce energy savings, however when looking past this simple assumption we find that things do not always work out so conveniently and that in the long-run, may result in higher energy consumption. Completely undoing any work done to improve the situation. Resource efficiencies as well as renewable energy technology provides the opportunity of population growth and sustainability, and because there is a direct correlation between population size and energy consumption, its valid to say that increase in energy usage is a product of the world being more efficient than ever before. A truly vicious cycle. Think about it, when you save money you usually tend to spend it on some other consumer goods, hence increasing energy consumption. For example, investing in a hybrid car which save s you ‘X’ dollars a year, and that energy efficient refrigerator, or central air conditioning system, which saves you more. How about solar panels? Sure these investments most definitely save you money and pay for themselves in the long-run; however what do you do with all that money saved. People generally turn around and use because, whether it be burning a hole in their pocket, or now they can spend more frivolously on non-necessities. Transportation is a big one, with the invention of more efficient means of travel, such as the automobile and the plane; people consume more fossil fuels and energy than they ever had. So here’s the point, the solution to these gas guzzlers particularly the SUV, are small hybrid cars, they can save you all kinds of money on gas. However, with this extra money saved people go out and spend it on more consumer goods, which require oil for factories to make. Hence the more purchasing of consumer goods, the faster we fuel the fire.

Perhaps, with the extra money saved a child’s Christmas tree on Christmas morning will be surrounded by double the amount of presents (consumer goods) than it would normally. Is this necessary? There many examples that can be made. When things are cheaper, people rush out and buy it, why do you think coupons and sales even exist. It is all psychology, to stimulate spending. Our country has even made a Holiday for crazed spending; it’s called Black Friday, the morning after Thanksgiving. Sales are announced days in advance letting the masses know what cheap deals they can get and people will rush out and fight to the death literally for these products, such as cheap computers, printers, DVDs, games, the list goes on, regardless of whether or not they really need it. It’s a shame that holidays have been turned into key dates for mega sales, probably due to the fact that people are off, so they can make it to the sale. Electronics in my opinion have to be one of the worse; it seems as if every time you go out and purchase a new computer, TV, camera, whatever it may be, it is always outdated in no time, replaced by something newer and shinier. So what do we do when a new more efficient model of TV comes out, we go out and purchase it. In fact we like them so much, that we purchase one for every bedroom of the house. Oh and don’t forget, Blue Rays look so much nicer on these TVs. In order to get your money’s worth better go out and a few Blue Ray players to, not to mention install a nice HD cable package too, so you can see every drip of sweat and dirt on your favorite baseball players face.

Humans are essentially hard-wired to go out and spend. Society puts so much emphasis for consumers to buy these goods to keep the economy strong and healthy. As long consumers stop consuming, the US economy will not grow. If people stopped buying, due to the lack of demand products will stop being produced. The flow of money will be haltered, having effects on taxes and prices of resources. I like to think of money as a ‘mess’ we are stuck in. It’s sort of a domino effect both ways, as the cost of energy decreases, people spend more buying the latest and greatest, this is economic growth. However this growth is proving to be detrimental to our Earth’s health. As the cost of energy increases, people won’t have the extra money to spend anymore; and if struggling to afford the necessities due to producers dwindling because their own financial losses, the economy will quickly shrink and fall apart weakening our country.

“Sea of selves" is Adam Curtis’ description of people’s mindset in today’s society. In his documentary “Century of the Self”, he explains how people are very egocentric and only think in terms of what would benefit themselves rather than others. He stresses how important it is that we relinquish ourselves from this imaginary freedom based on endless consuming, to have any chance ‘collective’ survival, of the massive hurdles that lie ahead of us. It’s going to take the joint effort of all of us for a chance to make things better and perhaps cushion the Earth’s retaliation toward years of punishment our destructive society.

In Tactical Uses of Passion written by political anthropologist F.G. Bailey, he mentions the ‘civic’ and the ‘divine’, the social aspects of personality. “The civic alludes to the set of rights, obligations and responsibilities that bind the collective to the individual and vice versa. The divine alludes to the notion of something greater than one's self and that the activities of the collective are significant in relation to the world” (Dardozzi 5). Thus, by paying more attention to the rights of others and recognize we are all collectively part of something greater than our individual, we can then relinquish ourselves from the materialistic fallacy of freedom we live in. We will then be able to experience what true freedom really is working side by side for the greater good.

I really enjoyed Jeff Dardozzi’s essay, “The Spector of Jevon's Paradox”. He opens the eyes of readers to how ignorant we are to the fact that through the purchase more efficient goods, and our struggle to become a more efficient society, we are in fact digging ourselves into a deeper whole, and consuming even more energy due to the left over cash saved. It is obvious that people need to sacrifice their egocentric attitudes and work together in order to experience true freedom and better take care of Earth our home, however why doesn’t anyone budge? This is the problem. I think more people are actually more aware of our problems than some may think, however don’t care enough to do anything to help. The refusal to look any deeper into the consequences, for example how our way of life may affect our kids, and the ultimately the implications unto the future of the human race.

Veteran's Day is a national holiday meant to commemorate and honor military veterans, people who risked everything they had to ensure the well being of their country and those Americans who live in it. They ensured that Americans could enjoy everything we have today. This extremely selfish act, an example of Bailey’s explanation of the divine social aspect, they fought for a greater cause. Thus I believe Veteran’s Day is an appropriate day for this blog, Americans now need to do to return the favor, not selfishly and ignorantly turn the day commemorating the selfless acts of soldiers into another mega sale. We as citizens now need to make the sacrifice, to pave the way for the future.

Resources

Dardozzi, Jeff. The Spector of Jevons’ Paradox. Google. < a="v" q="cache:MlS7zSutpAIJ:humanitieslab.stanford.edu/MAHB/admin/download.html%3F" hl="en&gl="us&pid="bl&srcid" sig="AFQjCNEPiLPzlvEf4vE5v57hZH4rCgmdnw">.