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4 EXAMINING THE DRIVING FORCES
Pages 73-123

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From page 73...
... Understanding environmentally significant consumption also requires the use of concepts not normally included in economic analyses. For example, economics normally treats preferences as exogenous to analyses, presuming that during the time frame of interest, preferences are constant.
From page 74...
... When the effects of population and affluence are estimated by regression, the residual variations cover more than a 20-fold range, probably attributable to national differences in technology, institutions, and other factors. Further study of the residual variation is one approach to clarifying the importance of driving forces other than population size and economic activity.
From page 75...
... He concludes that the transitions in these countries reflect a shift to more service-based, postmodern economies, in which both gross domestic product and nonmonetary indicators of welfare became less tightly coupled to carbon emissions during that period. Rosa suggests that further reductions in resource consumption can be made with only limited impacts on welfare.
From page 76...
... There are, of course, many other such investigations that could be conducted. In Chapter 5, we discuss some strategies for setting priorities among the vast range of possible research questions linking consumption and the environment.
From page 77...
... In fact, efforts to empirically examine, theorize, and model the dynamics and consequences of societal energy use have been pursued for more than 20 years. But understanding energy consumption is a far from straightforward matter.
From page 78...
... . The interdisciplinary literature concerned directly with the consumption of energy suggests, however, that social structure and cultural practice are indeed central to the structuring of energy consumption (Lutzenhiser, 1992a; Lutzenhiser and Hackett, 1993)
From page 79...
... . Rates of input energy waste and carbon dioxide pollution FIGURE 4-1 Annual Household Energy Consumption.
From page 80...
... 80 ENVIRONMENTALLY SIGNIFICANT CONSUMPTION TABLE 4-1 Physical and Social Variation in Energy Consumption, Northern California Households Mean consumption Cases (mBtu)
From page 81...
... is a primary determinate of energy consumption, waste, and pollution. In a system of status-graded lifestyles, volumes of energy flow provide rough measures of social standing -- the poor being excluded from all but modest forms of consumption, the middle classes sustained by consumption centered largely in housing and technologies, and the wealthy empowered in a variety of ways by high levels of energy flow.
From page 82...
... 22.0 (5.5) NOTE: b = slope of regression line, signifying mBtu consumed per unit of the independent variable; SE = standard error of b; CEC = dummy variable signifying climatic regions; mBtu = million British thermal units.
From page 83...
... Policy implications also follow from the social variation in consumption, the persistence of some low-energy-use cultural patterns in the midst of affluence, and the failure of conventional models to capture these variations. Policy-oriented research might focus on how conventional modeling systems operate and persist, and how cultural and institutional factors might be introduced to energy-policy modeling.
From page 84...
... $ Young/small family Persons 34 .25 Persons 34 .29 Persons 38 .37 Lifestyle 18 .13 Lifestyle 36 .32 Lifestyle 20 .19 Building 37 .27 Building 16 .14 Building 20 .19 Technology 49 .35 Technology 29 .25 Technology 25 .24 TOTAL 138 1.00 TOTAL 115 1.00 TOTAL 103 1.00 White $$ Older couple Black $$ Young/small family Hispanic(Spanish) $$ Young/small family Persons 19 .14 Persons 30 .26 Persons 36 .35 Lifestyle 18 .13 Lifestyle 31 .27 Lifestyle 6 .06 Building 45 .34 Building 27 .23 Building 28 .27 Technology 51 .38 Technology 28 .24 Technology 33 .32 TOTAL 133 1.00 TOTAL 115 1.00 TOTAL 103 1.00 ENVIRONMENTALLY SIGNIFICANT CONSUMPTION
From page 85...
... $$$ Young/small family Persons 36 .23 Persons 18 .25 Persons 37 .26 Lifestyle 18 .11 Lifestyle 6 .08 Lifestyle 6 .04 Building 46 .29 Building 24 .32 Building 45 .31 Technology 57 .36 Technology 27 .36 Technology 57 .39 EXAMINING THE DRIVING FORCES TOTAL 157 1.00 TOTAL 74 1.00 TOTAL 145 1.00 White $$$$ Young couple White $$$$ Young/small family White $$$$ Older/extended family Persons 19 .12 Persons 37 .19 Persons 39 .20 Lifestyle 32 .21 Lifestyle 33 .17 Lifestyle 33 .17 Building 47 .30 Building 58 .30 Building 59 .30 Technology 58 .37 Technology 66 .34 Technology 67 .34 TOTAL 156 1.00 TOTAL 193 1.00 TOTAL 197 1.00 NOTE: Units are million British thermal units and fractions of total. $ = low income; $$ = lower middle income; $$$ = upper middle income; $$$$ = high income.
From page 86...
... 596 110 42 86 < $15,000 448 69 31 84 $15,000-50,000 579 109 39 87 > $50,000 727 136 56 85 China, Japan, S Asia 422 106 30 92 < $15,000 448 87 30 99 $15,000-50,000 372 108 30 95 > $50,000 521 123 29 74 NOTE: mBtu = million British thermal units.
From page 87...
... EXAMINING THE DRIVING FORCES 87 Waste and Pollution Waste Waste Waste energy CO2 energy CO2 CO2 per capita per capita (mBtu) (tons)
From page 88...
... California Energy Commission 1986 Residential Appliance Saturation Survey: Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Sacra mento: California Energy Commission.
From page 89...
... Lutzenhiser, L 1992a A cultural model of household energy consumption.
From page 90...
... Olsen, M.E. 1991 The energy consumption turnaround and socioeconomic well-being in industrial societies in the 1980s.
From page 91...
... Panel on Energy Demand Analysis, Commit tee on Behavioral and Social Aspects of Energy Consumption and Production, National Research Council. Washington.
From page 92...
... Thus T represents not only technology per se, but also culture, social organization, and all facets of human life other than population and economic activity. In previous papers (Dietz and Rosa, 1994, 1997)
From page 93...
... are ignored. Since most debates about the driving forces of environmental change have focused on the impacts of population, we believe models that do not explore population effects will prove of limited value.
From page 94...
... proposes as the "ecological" or "physics" definition of consumption. Measures of per capita economic activity, such as per capita gross domestic product, used as A in the model, would be an appropriate specification for this interpretation of consumption.
From page 95...
... We use population size for P and gross domestic product per capita (gdp)
From page 96...
... . Population effects are calculated at the geometric mean of gross domestic product ($1476)
From page 97...
... In this assumption consumption, defined as affluence, increases but changes in production processes and the bundle of goods and services consumed lead to less impact per unit consumption. In both cases, we use the United Nations medium-case scenario for population projections and assume a 2 percent annual real growth in gdp (World Resources Institute, 1992)
From page 98...
... , gross domestic production (gdp) per capita, and percent of GDP spent on consumption (a disaggregation of overall GDP into consumption as defined by economists)
From page 99...
... 1995 The effect of population growth on environmental quality. Population Research and Policy Review.
From page 100...
... In the case of the leading industrial nations, releases are due almost entirely to fossil fuel use. National estimates of CO2 emissions for the leading industrial nations, such as those presented here, are computed by the Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Center (CDIAC)
From page 101...
... Knowing whether noneconomic well-being is tightly or loosely coupled to fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions can inform debates over broad carbon policy. If, unlike the economic domain, these other domains are tightly coupled, then policies calling for a reduction in CO2 emissions via reduced fossil fuel use will need to anticipate the costs to well-being of pursuing such a policy.
From page 102...
... To meet this objective we first identified the world's 23 leading industrial nations.4 We then subjected 26 readily available cross-national indicators representative of key domains of social life -- health, nutrition, transportation, education, culture, communications and media, and general satisfaction -- to a principal factor analysis.5 The result was a fourfactor solution, comprising 23 of the original 26 indicators, and representing four broad domains of social life: modern lifestyle, general well-being, health and safety, and life stress. Results of the factor analyses are presented in Table 4-5.
From page 103...
... and societal well-being, we examined trends in CO2 loads and the social well-being measures for the period 1950-1985 for the 23 industrial nations in our data set. We first examined the trend in per capita yearly CO2 emissions for each of the 23 countries, expecting to find them all on a consistently increasing, monotonic trend until such time as economic decoupling took place.
From page 104...
... With some exception for the economic laggards, the INCARB countries, we find that the social domains of wellbeing do not closely parallel the three distinct carbon trends. It appears that the coupling of well-being, whether defined narrowly or broadly, to fossil fuel consumption and the carbon emissions it produces weakened considerably in the 1970-1985 period.
From page 105...
... a Modern Lifestyle b General Well-Being 12 9 6 4.5 0 0 –6 -4.5 –12 –9 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 INCARB STACARB EXAMINING THE DRIVING FORCES c d DECARB Health and Safety Life Stress 7 2 5 1 3 1 0 –1 –3 –1 –5 –7 –2 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 FIGURE 4-5 Trends in four dimensions of societal well-being: Summated scores, all groups of countries, 1950-1985. INCARB = increasing trend in per capita CO2 emissions; STACARB = stabilizing trend in per capita CO2 emissions; DECARB = decreasing 105 trend in CO2 emissions.
From page 106...
... Figure 4-6 presents the relationships of carbon emissions to well-being in more detail and suggests a complex picture. Generally, the correlations are of much larger magnitude in the INCARB group than in the other groups, particularly in the earlier years of the time series.
From page 107...
... a Modern Lifestyle b General Well-Being 1 0.8 0.6 0.8 0.4 0.6 0.2 0 0.4 –0.2 0.2 –0.4 –0.6 0 –0.8 –0.2 –1 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 INCARB EXAMINING THE DRIVING FORCES STACARB c d Life Stress DECARB Health and Safety 0.4 0.4 0.2 0.2 0 0 –0.2 –0.2 –0.4 –0.4 –0.6 –0.6 –0.8 –0.8 –1 –1 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 FIGURE 4-6 Correlations of carbon dioxide emissions with four dimensions of societal well-being, all groups of countries, 19501985. INCARB = increasing trend in per capita CO2 emissions; STACARB = stabilizing trend in per capita CO2 emissions; 107 DECARB = decreasing trend in CO2 emissions.
From page 108...
... On the policy side, we conjecture that broad strategies devoted to the reduction of CO2 emissions via reduced fossil fuel use in the leading industrial nations will probably not be accompanied by significant impacts to societal well-being -- at least, not over the next several decades. This conjecture presumes that reductions in fossil fuel consumption can continue to come from technical improvements and other innovations that do not interfere with material well-being, as apparently occurred between 1970 and 1985.
From page 109...
... 1992 Global Environmental Change: Understanding the Human Dimension. Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change, National Research Council.
From page 110...
... The strongest form of emulation is often labeled "cultural imperialism." This theory contends that a combination of Western control of mass media and improved advertising, along with falling trade barriers and the spread of industrial capitalism, will inevitably lead the developing world into emulative forms of consumption (Tomlinson, 1991; Rassuli and Hollander, 1986)
From page 111...
... The explosion of consumer demand in China during the last decade has been used both as an example of cultural imperialism and of autonomy and increasing diversity in consumer culture. Consumer aspirations have changed several times during the last 20 years, and comparisons show that the mixture of goods consumed in China at a particular level of income is quite different from that found in other Asian countries (Sklair, 1994)
From page 112...
... Because all of these trends are occurring in developing countries, we can expect a similar growth of consumer culture, even in the absence of any specific form of emulation. So, even without emulation, consumption levels in developing countries may dramatically increase.
From page 113...
... Belk, R 1988 Third world consumer culture.
From page 114...
... 1989 Beyond Veblen: Rethinking consumer culture in America.
From page 115...
... Tiersten, L 1993 Redefining consumer culture: Recent literature on consumption and the bour geoisie in Western Europe.
From page 116...
... Both mobility and their social organization limit consumption. Mobile societies shift residences, whether on a predictable yearly cycle based upon seasonal cycles of wild crops and game or moving more opportunistically to follow herds, water, or areas not yet exhausted of plant resources.
From page 117...
... Total mass throughputs of indigenous societies have not been studied explicitly, but we can make estimates from existing ethnographic data. The bulk of the mass used by indigenous peoples is biodegradable and recycled by biological processes.
From page 118...
... To summarize briefly, our paper suggests potential candidates such as nutrition, health, life-span, work time vs. leisure time, in- vs.
From page 119...
... Life-span is longer in industrialized societies than in any of the indigenous societies we discuss. One component of the "most toys" myth is that the devices we consume reduce our work time -- i.e., that life is easier today than in earlier historical periods or in technologically primitive societies.
From page 120...
... Most early societies had consumption levels several orders of magnitude smaller than industrial societies today. However, some indigenous societies had very high levels of per capita materials consumption,
From page 121...
... (3) Major social transitions can occur if they provide benefits to decision-making elites and greater "fitness" at the societal level (e.g., military advantage or rapid growth and spread of the sociopolitical system)
From page 122...
... Payne in Cultural and social evolutionary determinants of consumption.
From page 123...
... Annual Review of Energy and Envi ronment 20:463-492.


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