Meaning, are we as a species at a point of technological development where if we have a global revolution tomorrow, and make it our top priority as a species, we could provide every human with:
‘ -sufficient nutritious food to eat and water to drink
‘ -comfortable housing with a reasonable about of space for everyone
‘ -electricity and sewers
‘ -productive employment
‘ -quality heathcare
‘ -education
‘ -a modest amount of the “stuff” we all like: books, TV shows, live music, coffee, etc etc
And being able to do this in a way that is environmentally sustainable and at least arrests further erosion of the climate and natural environment.
When I look out at our productive capabilities as they stand now, my gut says this is possible but I really don’t know.
Basically yes, however the differences would be massive. The only relatively current estimates & modeling I’ve found for this come from the book Half Earth Socialism. Some highlights I recall, under both energy & land use constraints:
There are some tradeoffs that could be made (you occasionally get to eat meat but have to use 1500 W instead of 2000 W, etc.) but land use is the big fundamental constraint if you want to avoid xenociding 85% of the world’s species (so you need to set aside half the earth for them). I know we all like those photos of mountains covered in solar panels in China but that’s an example of land use devoted to electricity.
The big wildcard here is nuclear power. I don’t want to start a nuclear power argument because those go nowhere. The Half Earth book doesn’t use nuclear in its scenarios because the largest base of support for eco policies is anti-nuclear. Whether you view overcoming that resistance as more or less realistic than convincing USian treatlerites to give up borger is of course up to you.
There is also the question of how in a society free from want you get people to do jobs that really fucking suck. This is in the “fun to speculate about” wheelhouse. Obviously capitalism takes the stick approach and threatens the global south with homelessness, starvation, and even direct murder if they don’t do the shitty jobs. Transforming this into a pure carrot-based approach is the domain of speculative fiction like The Dispossessed.
Just tangent to mentioning nuclear power, I came across this scene from a 1977 movie, this used to represent a sentiment about it.
Per individual? That’s an absolute fuckton (Spanish standards). My parents’ home, a flat about 100m² (rather big), used to consume when we were 4 people some 11kWh of electricity per day, negligible heating. In winter, taking gas powered heating, that may add some 25kWh/day, and the house isn’t even well insulated. I’ve never consumed that amount of energy, and proper home design.
That said, now I live in a flat with a friend and we don’t have heating except in the office, where we spend most of our time using an AC unit as heatpump. This runs some 800-1000W peak power in winter, and we keep the office at a toasty 22°C.
Do 'Muricans REALLY use 12 KILOWATTS of power?!!?!?!?!
We have had this conversation before, in fact.
Not per person, per capita. So for example the energy needed to transport all the food you buy to market or to manufacture all your shit is counted toward that total. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000-watt_society
Per that article Spanish people seem to use about 6000 W currently. Also if you take even a single flight per year it blows this budget up. The power generated by jet aircraft is actually astonishing.
Gotcha, I thought it was household energy usage per capita, not total. That’s a lot scarcer hahahs
couldnt you give incentives to those that do jobs that suck like access to more energy ? (just for example) I havent thought this through. just a thought.