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Posts tagged with:  jevons paradox

By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 7 Feb 22

  “What about the Jevons Paradox?” This is a common refrain in environmental discourse. It’s another way of asking, “won’t new technology always just create more problems than it solves?” William Stanley Jevons was an English economist and mathematician who noticed in 1865 that, paradoxically, the consumption of coal actually increased when technological progress improved the efficiency of steam engines. Efficiency lowers costs, which lowers prices, which increases demand. And, sometimes, the increase in demand is so disproportionately large that overall consumption actually grows. This outcome came to be known as the Jevons Effect, or Jevons Paradox. The Jevons Effect

  “What about the Jevons Paradox?” This is a common refrain in environmental discourse. It’s another way of asking, “won’t new technology always just create more problems than it solves?” William Stanley Jevons was an English economist and mathematician who noticed in 1865 that, paradoxically, the consumption of coal actually increased when technological progress improved the efficiency of steam engines.


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