I visited Costco the other day to bulk-buy toilet paper and paper towels. As I entered the store, I passed a skid of massive 86” color TVs for sale.
This was not the TV I grew up with.
For comparison, adjusted for inflation, the two TVs in the pictures, above and below, are the same price — $250 in 1965 is $2,000 today.
The massive Costco television is about as thick as a book and probably weighs less than the 1965 model.
It certainly gets more channels, and delivers much better reception.
That massive Costco TV got me thinking about one of the Big Truths of the current era, which is that there has been a massive *devolution* in terms of resource consumption.
Devolution? LESS resource consumption?
What the hell am I talking about?
A good example is no father away than my hand.
I’m typing this blog post on an iPhone that replaces about 35 old items (phone, speakers, stereo record player, radio, watch, TV, camera, video recorder, typewriter, mailbox, clock, photo album, calendar, record collection, file cabinet, calculator, photography lab, maps, compass, tape measure, global weather station, tape recorder, grocery store, world’s largest mall, western union money order store, global auction house, massive craft fair, research library, historical photo collection, light board, wallet, real estate agent, movie theatre, custom postcard kiosk, and car service), and it uses very little electricity and is made of very little plastic, glass, and metal.
Unbelievable, but not exceptional.
My car rolls farther, uses less gas per mile, rarely gets lost (thanks to GPS), lasts longer, and weighs less than cars of the past.
The construction wood I get at HomeDepot is often made of strand fiber or finger board that was once left to rot in the forest, or else it was burned in the mill.
Paper consumption has fallen through the floor as we now read everything digitally.
I haven’t licked a stamp in 20 years.
The cans and plastic bottles in my refrigerator use far less material than they did 50, 20, or even 10 years ago.
A lot of what I throw away now is recycled, and the energy used to power everything is way down thanks to more efficient motors, better insulation, and lighter vehicles.
Per capita geenhouse gas emissions are way down.
Across the board, we own more — and it’s generally better, and less expensive in terms of hours worked to acquire it — than we did 100, 50, 20, or even 10 years ago.
We eat better too.
It seems every fruit and vegetable is in season all year round now and, adjusted for inflation, it’s generally cheaper too.
Pesticide use is down, and bird and bat guano has been replaced by an endless supply of nitrogen pulled from the air, as well as clean aerated sewage that used to be dumped into our rivers and streams.
The chicken I eat is twice the size, in half the time, and with half the feed, and with far less mortality, than the chickens of my youth, and no hormones of any kind are used to achieve this miracle.
Cow milk consumption is way down, even as per-cow milk production is way up, all thanks to the miracle of selective breeding.
All of this is good news, and it’s the story of our lives.
Across the world fewer people are hungry, more people are warm and dry, and everyone is better educated.
Across the world more people have access to clean water and indoor toilets than ever before.
Global vaccination rates are way up, longevity is increasing, population growth rates are declining, and the status of women is improving. Child labor is becoming rarer.
This is not to say everything in the world is absolutely rosy. We are killing too many wild animals, and we are not protecting enough wild places.
The speed of modern resource extraction — whether by fishing net, gun, chainsaw, or bulldozer — is such that we can do massive damage in short order, and this damage can take decades or even centuries to correct.
Technology, like so many things, is a two-edged sword and we need to be careful how we swing it.
But the good news is that we know more and are generally more aware than we have ever been.
As a result of better local, national, and global monitoring, better research, longer databases, and improved advocacy, we are less likely to shoot out the buffalo and kill off the last passenger pigeon than we once were.
And so we come back to the little screen in my hand, and the giant one for sale in Costco.
The 12 hours a day we now spend on iPhone, computer, and TV may, in fact, be not all that bad.... provided we spend at least an hour or two a day in the real world with real people.
And, of course, the most important time is that spent outside in forest and field. That’s the important stuff — the real world that is really worth saving. ❤️
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