Regarding the I=P x Ax T equation, some comments in the paper do acknowledge that technology can reduce humanity’s impact on the environment. Over at my weblog, I suggest that T should be interpreted as a measure of the impact of the technologies we use on the environment, in which case the paper makes more sense.
Even so the equation is simplistic — e.g. I’ve see no consideration of the point that increases in affluence, after a certain level, lead to low population growth or even declining populations. The equation fails to capture feedback effects between the 3 variables.
Tim,
Regarding the I=P x Ax T equation, some comments in the paper do acknowledge that technology can reduce humanity’s impact on the environment. Over at my weblog, I suggest that T should be interpreted as a measure of the impact of the technologies we use on the environment, in which case the paper makes more sense.
Even so the equation is simplistic — e.g. I’ve see no consideration of the point that increases in affluence, after a certain level, lead to low population growth or even declining populations. The equation fails to capture feedback effects between the 3 variables.
My blog article is here; http://jameshammerton.blogspot.com/2008/02/technology-affluence-and-optimum.html