The Jevons Paradox: How Electric Vehicles Can Help the Future

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Since 1990, we've increased energy efficiency by 36% and yet globally we've increased our consumption by 63%. Electric cars are cleaner. They use less energy but system-wide they are not a response to either climate or energy depletion. Peak oil historically actually has never been about running out of oil. It's about the phase shift in human economies that happen once we start to lose those additional fossil workers added to the human system instead of the last 100 years where they've been increasing every year.

In Part 2 of this Frankly Series, Nate breaks down why energy - and specifically oil - is currently the central foundation of our entire modern economic system. There are ecological and energetic laws that apply to all life, including humans and our economies. By accessing a huge surplus of dense carbon energy in the form of fossil sunlight, we’ve effectively turbo-boosted our economies, populations, and material wealth - but what happens if this fossil abundance were to go away? What are the systemic implications of an economy tethered to growth, tethered to carbon? Is it even possible for us to choose to stop using oil? How do these complex constraints on our global systems affect the options - and most likely outcomes - in a future with declining oil availability and rising climate insecurity?

For Show Notes and More: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/frankly-original/39-just-stop-oil-part-2-oil-is-the-economy

To Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-585aVUNz68