Bidirectionality means tech insufficient – Increases in efficiency also increase consumption, thereby erasing benefits
Motesharrei 14 {Safa, Bachelor degrees in Engineering and Physics (Maryland), Masters in Physics and Mathematics (Maryland), Research Assistant at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, PhD candidate in Applied Mathematics/Public Policy (Maryland), This report was co-written with Eugenia Kalnay (meteorologist and a Distinguished University Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at Maryland), “Human and Nature Dynamics (HANDY): Modeling Inequality and Use of Resources in the Collapse or Sustainability of Societies,” National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, 3/19, http://www.sesync.org/sites/default/files/resources/motesharrei-rivas-kalnay.pdf}
It is frequently claimed that technological change can reduce resource depletion and therefore increase carrying capacity. However, the effects of technological change on resource use are not unidirectional. Technological change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but it also tends to raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that, absent policy effects, the increases in consumption often compensate for the increased efficiency of resource use. These are associated with the phenomena referred to as the Jevons Paradox, and the "Rebound Effect" [Polimeni et al., 2008; Greening et al., 2000; Ruth. 2009]. For example, an increase in vehicle fuel efficiency tends to enable increased per capita vehicle miles driven, heavier cars, and higher average speeds, which then negate the gains from the increased fuel-efficiency. In addition, technological advances can enable greater resource extraction and throughput, which then appears as increases in the productivity of other factors of production. As Daly points out, much of the increase in productivity in both agriculture and industry in the last two centuries has actually come from increased (rather than decreased) resource throughput [Daly. 1991]. A decline in the price of a resource Is usually thought to reflect an increase in the abundance of that resource, but in fact, it often reflects that the resource is simply being extracted more rapidly. Rather than extend carrying capacity, this reduces it. Over the long-term, per capita resource-use has tended to rise over time despite dramatic technological advances in resource efficiency. Thus, the sign and magnitude of the effect of technological change on resource use varies and the overall effect is difficult to predict. Therefore, in this generation of HANDY, we assume that the effects of these trends cancel each other out. The model will be developed further to allow the rates of these technology-induced trends to be adjusted in either direction.