Humankind Advancing, Vol.9, No.1 January 1998

RELIEF EFFORTS -- IN THE CONCRETE WORLD

Excerpts from FUTURE SURVEY review

Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use. The New Report to the Club of Rome. Ernst von Weizsäcker (President, Wuppertal Institute, Germany), Armory B. Lovins (RMI) and L. Hunter Lovins (RMI) [Rocky Mountain Institute].

"Factor four" means that resource productivity can and should grow fourfold; thus we can live twice as well while using half as much. "The efficiency revolution is bound to become a global trend. As is always the case with new opportunities, those who pioneer the trend will reap the greatest rewards." [One among seven compelling reasons for resource efficiency is that] it enables more employment (business should sack unproductive kilowatt-hours rather than their workforce).

The authors demonstrate that quadrupling of resource productivity is technically feasible and would produce massive macro-economic gains by describing 50 examples, including lightweight hypercars, the RMI office buildings, superwindows, super-refrigerators, low voltage DC in private homes, low-energy beef, reducing space-cooling energy by close to 100-fold, subsurface drip irrigation, water efficient manufacturing,...perennial polyculture, rent-a-chemical schemes (where manufacturers keep control over hazardous chemicals throughout their life cycles; already introduced by Dow Germany), e-mail to reduce paper-usage, [and much more].

Other chapters discuss market imperfections that impede new industries in resource efficiency (the lack of true cost information)...why sustainable development is inescapable but has hardly begun...The Limits to Growth revisited (defending the 1972 study and its 1992 update)...and the problem that insatiable consumption may outpace the efficiency revolution.

Note [of Future Survey Editor]: "Integrates the leading edge ideas of RMI and Wuppertal into a powerful and challenging argument. This book is easily one of the most important of the year, and perhaps the decade." [It is available in the U.S.A. from the Rocky Mountain Institute or Island Press.]

The book is widely recommended. The well-known Canadian promoter of ecological consciousness, David Suzuki, calls it "a priceless guide to the ways we can maintain a high quality of life while saving energy, money, and the biosphere."

But not all reviews are favourable. Ernest B. Cohen (Sustainable Society Action Project, Inc.), U.S.A., calls the book "dangerous," because it leaves the impression that sustainability can be attained effortlessly. Too much trust is placed in technology. He admits, however, that in later chapters the authors point out that all efficiency efforts can only buy time. Ultimately, deeper changes in the economy, in life style, and in society are required. -- To these deeper changes we will now turn.