Technological Trajectories and the Human Environment (1997) / Chapter Skim
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Life-styles and the Environment: The Case of Energy
Life-styles and the Environment: The Case of Energy
Pages 89-109
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From page 89... ...
Life-styles and the Environment: The Case of Energy LEE S CHIPPER When we speak of pressures on the natural environment, we should speak more about home loans, old-age income, and women drivers, more about shrinking households and all-night shopping, and perhaps less about coal mines and pulp mills. In this essay I will argue that the precise nature of the demands for services that we collectively create increasingly shape environmental change.
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From page 90... ...
Improvements in the energy efficiency of manufacturing have also significantly tempered the growth in energy demand (Schipper, 1993~. Energy-use efficiency is still improving by 1 to 2 percent per year in manufacturing.
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From page 91... ...
Excepting infrequent, dramatic events of the kind that occurred in Central and Eastern Europe, energy demand does not change much in the short term unless energy prices or incomes change, in turn causing changes in the demand for energy services. In the medium term, however, the systems converting energy to services, such as hot food or cool air, may be modified, renovated, or replaced, and these changes in capital stock and associated techniques allow for enormous changes in energy requirements per unit of service.
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From page 92... ...
CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURES Savings as well as present and projected income constrain the goods and services that households are able to purchase in any given year. How households allocate their incomes among goods, services, and savings reveals economic preferences, and consumer expenditure data show how much money average households spend for various goods and services.
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From page 93... ...
The increases in ownership raised energy demand more than the changes in the use of the systems, such as the hours of heating in homes equipped with central heat. By the late 1980s, growth in ownership of many kinds of equipment slowed both in the United States and in other high-income countries.
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From page 94... ...
LEE S CHIPPER ship, which accelerated after 1989 in Poland, continued to shrink even as the economies of the former East bloc were in collapse suggesting strongly that individuals will do almost anything to acquire the personal mobility previously rationed or restricted (Meyers et al., 1993) Recent construction in Poland and other countries points to an analogous reach for housing space.
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From page 95... ...
Suggesting the contrary, people have been spending somewhat more time away from home. Unless people travel shorter distances to services, work, and leisure, or make fewer trips, energy demand for transport will increase in the absence of a change to a markedly more energy-efficient travel technology.
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From page 96... ...
Between 1960 and 1985 household size fell from 2.9 to 2.4 in Sweden, from 3.6 to 2.6 in the Netherlands, from 3.4 to 2.8 in the United States, and from 4.5 to 3.2 in Japan. Roughly speaking, the declines can be expressed as increases in the number of housing units per capita; these increases caused per capita household energy use to rise by 15 to 25 percent.
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From page 97... ...
Fewer children means more time available for leisure and also for work for women. Indeed, female participation in the labor force has increased steadily since 1950 in the United States and in other developed countries.
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From page 98... ...
The continued growth of the elderly segment of society will depend on our ability to pay for high standards of medical care, and the increased number of people living alone must reflect their being able to afford such independence. The ability of the elderly to continue to live in their family homes depends on how well their savings and pensions, including social security, support them in retirement.
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From page 99... ...
Attitudes and policies toward restaurants and entertainment also affect the likelihood that people will spend leisure time out of their homes. Company and tax policies favoring entertainment expenses influence how much people choose to go out.
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From page 100... ...
In the United States, tax rules permit unlimited deduction of mortgage interest payments from taxable income; this same benefit is limited in most European countries. While US authorities permit almost no deductions for commuting costs, these are directly deductible in Sweden, or indirectly subsidized through light tax treatment of company-provided cars or company-subsidized transit tickets in the United Kingdom and Germany.
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From page 101... ...
Changes in the leisure time that societies formalize through paid vacation and holidays also affect energy demand. If people choose to work fewer hours, they may find themselves with significantly more free time.
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From page 102... ...
Overall, we do not see the consistently declining ratios that would signal an "energy saturation" of the whole society. A LOOK TO THE FUTURE What broad speculations and questions may be offered about how future lifestyles and policies may affect activities related to energy use in a wide range of areas?
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From page 103... ...
With the former, both the total amount of conditioned space and total mobility could fall. The increased clustering of people expands the possibilities for using collective modes to provide transport or to bring services to the communities.
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From page 104... ...
The main issue is probably whether pressures on those active in the labor force will limit the increase in free time.
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From page 105... ...
Even if business travel rises, travel for services and leisure could fall as the home becomes a major focus of catalog shopping and the self-production of entertainment services. Transit Trends suggest continued growth roughly in proportion to income.
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From page 106... ...
Land Use Settlement patterns do not appear headed toward the kind of clustering that will produce significant changes in travel time or less energy-intensive modes. Greater residential densities in cities may decrease commuting and travel, or at least permit greater use of collective modes, including walking and biking (New Scientist, 1993~.
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From page 107... ...
Large variations exist even now among relatively similar countries, and it is easy to envision a wide range of travel demand in the future, depending partly on direct costs but at least equally on a host of life-style choices that affect where and how often we move about and why. While a low-mobility future is neither likely nor desirable, it is probable that wealthy countries will take steps to confront users of their transport systems with the real costs of movement and will search aggressively for more environmentally compatible transport systems in the light of likely future growth.
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From page 108... ...
1991. Nationwide Personal Transportation Study, Early Results.
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From page 109... ...
Pp. 255-268 in The Energy Efficiency Challenge for Europe: Proceedings of the ECEEE Summer Study.
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