Back in the 1950s! Environmental problems can be solved only by reducing energy consumption

An interesting analysis of how the standard of living of mankind should be reduced if it deliberately pursues a "green policy" was made in his publication in the journal "Population" by Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor of Systems Ecology at RUDN University Vladimir Tetelmin:

“It is known that there is a limit to the use by the human body of its own energy capacity, which is determined by the“ intensity of the main energy exchange ”0.3-0.5 mW / g. The body of an individual person dies from "heat death" if it develops a similar intensity of cellular metabolism. It can be assumed that for human society there is a certain limit to the use of global primary energy per capita”.

Further Tetelmin shows how much energy a person should consume for the sake of "Sustainable Development":

“For many centuries, the per capita consumption of industrial energy in the world annually increased by about 30 kWh / year and by 1950 increased from the necessary and sufficient 4 MWh / year to 11 MWh / year. During the main period of its history, civilization lived in the mode of modest per capita energy consumption, not overloading the biosphere with its presence. If in the middle of the XX century. mankind stopped at this level of per capita energy consumption, without increasing the production of global energy, then today no more than 3.8 billion people would live on Earth.

After 1970, the increase in specific energy consumption increased to 100 kWh per person per year. In 1970, the world's average energy consumption per person was 18 MWh / year.

In 2020, the value of the per capita energy supply of civilization approached 24 MWh / year. If humanity does not change the paradigm of energy growth, then by 2050 this figure will reach 26 MWh / year with a population of 9.8 billion people. The biosphere and the Earth's climate system were the first to react to the factor of congestion with anthropogenic energy

Each 1 kWh of anthropogenic energy enhances the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere and accumulates 16 kWh of thermal energy in the Earth's climate system".

Tetelmin warns that, on average, humanity should reduce energy consumption to the level of the "golden age" of humanity in the 1950-70s - 11-18 MWh / year. Better would be 11, but at least 18 MWh / year per person.

What does this specifically mean for the First World and personally for all of us in Russia. Of course, PM and we consume many times more energy than the world average. On average in the EU, this indicator in 2020 was 25 MWh / year, in Japan - 46 MWh / year, in Russia - 60 MWh / year, in the USA - 86 MWh / year. For comparison: in India this figure is 2 MWh / year, in Afghanistan - 0.26 MWh / year. By the way, China is close to the level of "Sustainable Development" - 20 MWh / year.

Those. the average European now has to consume 1.5 times less energy for the gentle 1970 regime than it does now (in the hard 1950 version - 2 times). Russian - 3 (5) times, American - 4 (7-8) times. A good European option to include the United States)) Among the developed countries, Europe will be least affected by "Sustainable Development".

And how to achieve this - a lot has already been said: the almost complete abolition of personal transport (through an intermediate phase - e-mobiles), a reduction in air travel, a circular economy (secondary-tertiary-infinite use of materials), the abolition of the consumption of meat, renewable energy sources, etc.

Tetelmin sees the way out not in quotas for greenhouse gas emissions, but in quotas for energy consumption. Well, a powerful supra-global supervisory authority will be able to regulate this:

“The world community can prepare an analogue of the Paris Agreement, which would envisage not quotas for greenhouse gas emissions, but quotas of countries for the production and use of energy. All other attempts to stop the global socio-ecological crisis will not bring success. It will not be possible to build a “fair capitalism”, switch to sustainable development and “green” the world socio-economic system without a radical change in the global energy paradigm. At the same time, it is important to carry out the "reverse energy transition" in conditions of peaceful coexistence of different countries and peoples in the name of preserving human civilization for a long time".

Summing up these calculations of "Sustainable Development", analysts of the blog "Tolkovatel" summarize: it all boils down to a sharp decrease in consumption. In fact, this is a counter-world: the developed countries are invited to return to 1950, maximum - 1970. That same Russia, apparently, will be dropped in 1970. Every Russian can ask how his ancestors lived in 1970. For example, almost no one had a personal car. In Moscow, for example, everything is heading towards this, and Deptrans openly admitted that its goal is to make Moscow without private cars. Reduce "long-distance tourism" (with long-distance flights) at times. We already see the same (foreign tourism collapsed). Go for milk with a metal can. Repair clothes, shoes, electronics. Etc.

On the other hand, the 1950s and 1970s all over the world are the minimum of social inequality. The smallest income gap is between the top 10% and the rest of the population. The peak of social democracy. Those. within the framework of "Sustainable Development" it is necessary to decently dispossess the upper classes, but this is already a problem.