Fact-checked by Grok 2 weeks ago

Ephemeralization

Ephemeralization is a concept formulated by American architect, engineer, and futurist Richard Buckminster Fuller in his 1938 book Nine Chains to the Moon, encapsulating the capacity of technological progress to deliver progressively greater utility through diminishing quantities of energy, materials, and labor—ultimately aspiring to the extreme of fulfilling all human needs with negligible physical inputs.^[1]^[2] Fuller posited this as an empirical trend observable in historical innovations, where efficiency gains compound to counteract resource constraints and elevate living standards for expanding populations.^[3] Central to Fuller's broader philosophy of "design science," ephemeralization emphasized systemic redesign over mere conservation, advocating for inventions like the geodesic dome—which encloses vast volumes with minimal structural mass—as exemplars of achieving superior performance via lightweight, high-strength geometries.^[4] Subsequent manifestations include computational advancements following Moore's Law, whereby transistor density doubles roughly biennially, enabling exponential increases in processing power with reduced material footprints, and the internet's virtualization of information access, supplanting physical infrastructure with shared digital resources.^[2]^[5] These developments underscore ephemeralization's causal mechanism: iterative engineering refinements amplify output per input, fostering abundance rather than scarcity in a finite world.^[6] While Fuller's vision inspired fields from architecture to computing, it has drawn scrutiny for underemphasizing ecological limits and unintended systemic feedbacks, such as electronic waste from rapid obsolescence, though empirical data on per-capita resource dematerialization in advanced economies lends partial validation to his trajectory of efficiency-driven prosperity.^[7] Nonetheless, ephemeralization remains a foundational lens for analyzing technological evolution, prioritizing verifiable trends in performance-to-resource ratios over ideological constraints on innovation.

Origins and Definition

Coining by Buckminster Fuller

Buckminster Fuller introduced the term "ephemeralization" in his debut book, Nine Chains to the Moon, published on October 28, 1938, by J. B. Lippincott Company.^[8] Written amid the lingering effects of the Great Depression, which had exposed widespread inefficiencies in resource allocation and industrial output since 1929, the work reflected Fuller's analysis of emerging trends in manufacturing and transportation that promised exponential gains in performance per unit of input.^[9] He derived the concept from observations of historical technological shifts, such as the replacement of horse-drawn carriages with automobiles, which reduced the physical weight and energy required for mobility while vastly increasing capacity and speed.^[1] Prior to the book's publication, Fuller had endured multiple entrepreneurial setbacks, including the 1922 failure of his 4D Company, which aimed to produce lightweight, mass-habitable dwellings using novel materials like asbestos cement, and the 1927 bankruptcy of his Stockade Building System venture after producing only a fraction of projected units due to supply chain disruptions and market resistance.^[10] These collapses, coupled with the 1927 death of his young daughter from pneumonia during a harsh winter exacerbated by inadequate housing, culminated in a personal crisis by Lake Michigan where Fuller, then 32, resolved to abandon conventional career paths in favor of systematic experimentation in "comprehensive anticipatory design science" to benefit all humanity.^[11] This pivot informed the book's emphasis on reorienting invention toward universal resource optimization rather than profit-driven silos. Fuller initially defined ephemeralization as the capacity of advancing technology to perform "more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing," positing it as a counter to resource scarcity by leveraging intellect to transcend material limits and fulfill global needs without exhaustion of finite supplies.^[12] He illustrated this through quantitative examples, such as the aluminum industry's shift from bulky ingots to high-strength alloys that enabled aircraft to carry payloads exceeding their own structural mass, signaling a trajectory toward dematerialization in human artifacts.^[13] This framing positioned ephemeralization not as speculative futurism but as an observable pattern in empirical data from early 20th-century engineering, urging a data-driven departure from wasteful traditions.^[14]

Core Concept and Philosophical Underpinnings

Ephemeralization denotes the capacity of technological and design advancements to achieve progressively greater outcomes with diminishing inputs of energy, materials, and human effort, culminating in the ideal of "doing more and more with less and less until eventually doing everything with nothing."^[15]^[16] This principle, articulated by R. Buckminster Fuller, emphasizes dynamic processes—verbs representing utility and function—over static possessions or nouns, redirecting focus toward enhancing human experience through efficiency rather than accumulation.^[15] It posits that systemic improvements in performance per unit input arise from aligning human artifacts with inherent efficiencies observed in nature. At its philosophical core, ephemeralization reflects Fuller's conception of the universe as an integrated, self-organizing energy network governed by observable patterns of efficiency and regeneration, where local human interventions amplify global order without net consumption.^[17] This worldview counters scarcity paradigms, such as those advanced by Thomas Malthus in 1798 predicting population-driven resource exhaustion, by prioritizing verifiable historical trajectories of ingenuity-driven gains over theoretical limits.^[18] Fuller argued that empirical data from industrial developments revealed consistent trends toward higher yields per resource unit, fostering potential for generalized abundance through iterative refinement rather than redistribution or restraint.^[15] The concept integrates first-principles analysis, deriving structural and systemic efficiencies from fundamental physical behaviors, such as the equilibrium of tensional and compressional forces to distribute loads optimally and reduce mass requirements.^[19] In this framework, designs emulate natural precedents—like isotropic vector equilibrium in crystalline formations—to minimize waste, embodying causal mechanisms where form follows function through precise vector geometry rather than brute accumulation.^[17] Such reasoning underscores ephemeralization's realism: outcomes stem from exploiting inherent synergies in matter and energy, verifiable through prototyping and measurement, rather than speculative ideals.^[19]

Theoretical Mechanisms

First-Principles Drivers

Advances in material science underpin ephemeralization by enabling materials with higher strength-to-mass ratios, thereby reducing the physical inputs required for equivalent functional outputs. High-strength alloys, such as those developed from aluminum and titanium, achieve this through optimized atomic bonding and microstructure refinements that enhance tensile strength while minimizing density; for example, early 20th-century aluminum alloys allowed aircraft structures to support greater loads with 20-30% less weight compared to prior steel-based designs.^[20] ^[21] Subsequent progress in composites and advanced alloys has extended these gains, with specific strength metrics improving by factors of 2-5 over decades, rooted in empirical mastery of phase transformations and defect minimization under thermodynamic constraints.^[22] ^[23] These material efficiencies compound with energy principles, where reduced mass lowers inertial and gravitational demands, permitting operations closer to physical limits like optimal lift-to-drag ratios in transport or minimal dissipation in mechanical systems. Empirical trends across technologies demonstrate this causality: performance-to-weight ratios in aircraft engines and airframes have risen consistently, with thrust-to-weight parameters increasing by over 10-fold from 1940 to the present, driven by alloy and design optimizations independent of external variables.^[24] ^[25] Such patterns hold in electronics and machinery, where lighter components enable higher operational speeds and lower energy inputs per unit of work, aligning with conservation laws that favor minimal entropy generation for sustained utility.^[26] Informational principles further amplify these physical drivers through knowledge accumulation, where iterative R&D and production experience yield exponential efficiency gains via learning curves. Wright's law quantifies this as a consistent cost reduction—typically 10-30% per doubling of cumulative output—arising from causal mechanisms like process refinements and spillover innovations that embed prior discoveries into scalable protocols.^[27] ^[28] This compounding effect, observed uniformly in domains from manufacturing to computation, stems from the non-linear returns on informational inputs: each increment in understood variables unlocks disproportionate resource leverage, as verified by longitudinal data showing sustained declines in input intensity across independent technological lineages.^[29]

Relation to Synergetics and Systems Thinking

Fuller's synergetics provides the geometric and conceptual foundation for ephemeralization, framing it as an outcome of synergistic vector equilibria that optimize performance through holistic integration rather than isolated components. In Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking (1975), Fuller describes the universe's geometry as favoring efficiency via isotropic vector matrices and closest packing, where polyhedral systems like the vector equilibrium achieve stability and function with minimal redundancy, aligning with ephemeralization's progression toward "doing ever more with ever less."^[30] This approach leverages 4D tetrahedral coordination and great-circle vector alignments to model transformative efficiencies unachievable in linear Euclidean paradigms.^[2] Central to this integration are tensegrity principles, which Fuller developed within synergetics to demonstrate structural ephemeralization through the separation of tension and compression forces. Tensegrity configurations, such as mast systems with discontinuous struts in continuous netting, minimize mass while maximizing load-bearing capacity, as the omni-directional tension pre-stresses the assembly for emergent rigidity without redundant material. Fuller explicitly linked tensegrity to ephemeralization in synergetics, noting it as a core mechanism for reducing structural weight to near-zero while preserving integrity, reflecting the universe's economic tendencies in precessional dynamics.^[30] From a systems thinking perspective, ephemeralization emerges as a meta-pattern in the universe's systemic evolution, where non-linear synergies produce outputs exceeding input sums, observable in biological precession and artifactual refinements. Fuller's framework treats systems as integral wholes governed by conservation laws that prioritize metaphysical coherence over entropic waste, distinguishing ephemeralization from mere incremental efficiencies by its reliance on emergent properties from multi-variable interactions.^[2] This view posits the cosmos as inherently synergetic, with ephemeralization as the observable trajectory of experiential reality toward comprehensive anticipation via integrated design strategies.^[31]

Historical Examples

Pre-20th Century Precursors

The invention of the wheel around 3500 BCE in Mesopotamia represented an early efficiency gain in transportation, enabling the movement of heavier loads over distances with significantly reduced human or animal exertion compared to dragging sledges or rollers, which required proportional increases in labor for scaling loads.^[32] Roman aqueducts, constructed from the 4th century BCE onward, exemplified resource parsimony by leveraging gravity to convey vast quantities of water—up to 1 million cubic meters daily in some systems—across terrains spanning dozens of kilometers, minimizing the materials and ongoing energy inputs needed relative to manual porterage or localized wells.^[33] Advancements in mechanical power further illustrated pre-industrial trends toward amplified output per input. Water wheels, evolving from simple undershot designs in antiquity to more efficient overshot variants by the Roman era, harnessed hydraulic potential to grind grain or power mills, yielding mechanical work equivalent to multiple human laborers while consuming no additional fuel beyond the water flow itself.^[34] In the 18th century, James Watt's 1765 innovation of a separate condenser for the Newcomen atmospheric engine raised thermal efficiency from approximately 0.7% to 2-3%, and later iterations achieved up to 5%, thereby extracting greater mechanical work—measured in horsepower equivalents—from each unit of coal burned, surpassing the intermittent and feed-dependent output of draft animals like horses, which converted only a fraction of caloric intake into sustained power.^[35]^[36] Agricultural practices in 18th- and 19th-century Britain demonstrated analogous reductions in land and labor intensity through systematic methods. Selective breeding, pioneered by figures like Robert Bakewell for livestock in the 1760s, increased meat and wool yields per animal by 50-100% over prior breeds without expanding pasture requirements, while crop rotation systems such as the Norfolk four-field method—adopted widely from the 1730s—boosted soil fertility and output, raising average wheat productivity from about 19 bushels per acre in the early 1700s to over 30 bushels by the mid-1800s through minimized fallow periods and integrated fodder crops.^[37] These developments collectively lowered the resource footprint per unit of caloric or material production, predating formalized industrial scaling yet aligning with patterns of intensified performance from constrained inputs.^[38]

Industrial and Post-War Advancements

The introduction of Henry Ford's moving assembly line for the Model T in 1913 exemplified early industrial ephemeralization by drastically reducing production time from approximately 12.5 hours per vehicle to 93 minutes, while distributing labor across specialized tasks that minimized individual worker input per unit.^[39]^[40] This innovation enabled Ford to produce over 15 million Model Ts by 1927, achieving greater output with proportionally fewer resources per automobile through standardized parts and continuous flow processes.^[41] In aviation, the shift to advanced aluminum alloys during World War II accelerated ephemeralization by enabling aircraft to achieve superior performance metrics—such as speed, range, and payload—with reduced structural weight compared to early biplanes reliant on wood, fabric, and basic metals. For instance, alloys like 2024 aluminum, refined in the 1930s and widely deployed in fighters such as the P-51 Mustang, provided higher strength-to-weight ratios, allowing airframes to support heavier armaments and fuel loads while minimizing material mass; early biplanes like the Sopwith Camel (1917) weighed around 1,100 pounds empty but offered limited lift and speed, whereas WWII monoplanes enclosed vastly more operational capability per pound of airframe.^[42]^[43] Post-war, the 1947 invention of the transistor at Bell Laboratories marked a pivotal advancement in electronics, replacing power-hungry vacuum tubes with compact semiconductor devices that consumed far less energy and occupied minimal space, thereby enabling more complex circuits in smaller volumes.^[44] This facilitated the miniaturization of radios and early computers, aligning with Buckminster Fuller's contemporaneous geodesic dome prototypes in the 1950s, which demonstrated structural ephemeralization by enclosing greater volumes with approximately one-third less material than traditional enclosures through tensegrity and triangular geometry.^[4]^[45] These developments post-1938 underscored an intensifying trend of performance gains per unit of input across manufacturing sectors.

Contemporary Applications

Computing and Digital Technologies

Gordon Moore formulated what became known as Moore's Law in 1965, observing that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double approximately every year, a prediction later revised to every two years based on observed trends in semiconductor manufacturing.^[46]^[47] This exponential increase in transistor density, driven by advances in lithography and materials, has enabled progressively greater computational performance per unit of silicon area and energy, aligning with ephemeralization by delivering vastly more processing capability from diminishing physical footprints.^[48] By the 1970s, early microprocessors like the Intel 4004 contained around 2,300 transistors, supporting basic calculator functions in devices spanning multiple circuit boards, whereas 2020s smartphones integrate system-on-chips with over 19 billion transistors, such as the Apple A17 Pro, fitting immense parallelism into handheld form factors previously requiring room-sized mainframes. Virtualization and cloud computing have further dematerialized hardware dependencies, allowing software to abstract and share physical servers across multiple virtual instances, reducing idle capacity that plagued on-premises setups.^[49] Data centers transitioned from average Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) ratios near 2.0 in the early 2010s—indicating significant overhead in cooling and power delivery—to sub-1.2 by 2020 for leading operators like Google, reflecting optimizations in airflow, liquid cooling, and server utilization that curbed energy growth despite surging data demands.^[50]^[51] This shift replaced dedicated physical servers with elastic cloud resources, achieving up to 10-fold improvements in compute efficiency per watt through workload consolidation and just-in-time provisioning, thereby minimizing material and energy inputs for equivalent output.^[52] In artificial intelligence, post-training inference for large language models exemplifies resource-efficient scaling, where models trained on massive datasets deploy with quantized weights to run on commodity hardware, incurring minimal incremental compute for each query after initial investment.^[53] Techniques like 4-bit quantization reduce memory footprint by factors of 4-8 while preserving accuracy, enabling 2020s systems to process natural language tasks—once limited to supercomputers—at latencies under milliseconds on edge devices, thus amplifying intellectual output per physical substrate.^[54] These advancements sustain ephemeralization's trajectory in digital realms, where information processing transcends material constraints, though bounded by thermodynamic limits on heat dissipation and quantum effects in scaling.

Energy, Materials, and Manufacturing

In the realm of energy efficiency, the transition to light-emitting diode (LED) technology exemplifies ephemeralization by dramatically increasing luminous efficacy while slashing power consumption for illumination. Early practical LEDs in the 1960s achieved efficacies around 1-5 lumens per watt (lm/W), far below the 15 lm/W of incandescent bulbs, but advancements accelerated post-1990s with white LEDs reaching 100 lm/W by 2006 and commercial products exceeding 200 lm/W by the 2020s through phosphor coatings and chip improvements.^[55] ^[56] This progression has yielded global energy savings, with U.S. adoption alone preventing 1.3 quadrillion Btu of annual consumption by 2018, equivalent to $14.7 billion in costs, as LEDs provide 75-90% less energy use than incandescents for equivalent output.^[57] ^[58] By enabling the same or greater lighting performance with minimal electricity, LEDs reduce the energy intensity of human illumination by orders of magnitude compared to pre-LED eras dominated by inefficient filaments and fluorescents.^[59] Additive manufacturing, particularly 3D printing developed commercially after 2000, advances manufacturing efficiency by minimizing material waste inherent in traditional subtractive processes like CNC machining. Subtractive methods often discard 70-95% of raw material as scrap for complex geometries, whereas additive techniques build parts layer-by-layer, achieving material utilization rates above 90% and reducing waste by up to 90% in metal applications.^[60] ^[61] This allows production of intricate components—such as turbine blades or custom prosthetics—with less feedstock, lower energy for waste handling, and on-demand fabrication that curtails inventory and transport needs, thereby amplifying output per unit of input in resource-intensive sectors.^[62] Material innovations in alloys and composites further embody ephemeralization in structural applications, permitting equivalent strength and functionality with reduced mass. In the automotive sector, advanced high-strength steels (AHSS) and carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers introduced widely in the 2010s enable component weight reductions of 15-40% without compromising safety or durability, as seen in chassis and body panels where AHSS yields higher strength-to-weight ratios than conventional mild steel.^[63] ^[64] Similarly, aluminum alloys and composites have increased per-vehicle usage from 154 kg in 2010 to 208 kg in 2020, offsetting overall mass gains from added features while cutting material intensity by 10-30% in targeted designs, yielding 6-8% fuel economy gains per 10% weight drop.^[65] ^[66] These substitutions recycle scrap more effectively and demand fewer virgin resources, sustaining performance growth amid resource constraints.^[67]

Transportation and Communication

Advancements in electric vehicle battery technology illustrate ephemeralization by delivering substantially greater mobility per unit of energy and material. In the 1990s, prototypes like the General Motors EV1 offered ranges of 90-100 miles on lead-acid or early nickel-metal hydride batteries with limited energy densities around 150 Wh/kg.^[68] ^[69] By the 2020s, lithium-ion batteries achieved densities up to five times higher in top-tier cells, enabling vehicles such as the Tesla Model S Long Range Plus to exceed 400 miles per charge.^[70] ^[71] Concurrently, battery pack costs declined from over $7,500 per kWh in 1991 to $115 per kWh in 2024, reducing the resource footprint for equivalent or superior performance.^[72] ^[73] Ride-sharing platforms like Uber and Lyft, launched in the early 2010s, harness algorithmic matching and network effects to boost urban vehicle utilization beyond traditional private car patterns. Pre-platform averages for U.S. household vehicles showed occupancy of about 1.5 persons per trip, with urban solo drives often leaving over 75% of seats empty in typical four- to five-seat configurations.^[74] These services elevate effective occupancy to 1.3-1.4 passengers per vehicle-mile in aggregate rides, including shared options that fill otherwise idle capacity and reduce per-passenger empty mileage, though deadheading (unloaded trips) tempers net gains.^[75] ^[76] This dynamic optimization aligns with ephemeralization by amplifying transport output from existing fleets without proportional increases in vehicle production. In communication networks, the 1980s-2000s migration from copper to fiber optic cabling exemplifies resource-efficient data exchange. Copper infrastructure supported bandwidths up to 10 Gbps but demanded heavier cabling prone to signal loss over distance, tying material mass to limited throughput.^[77] Fiber optics, using light pulses in silica strands far thinner and lighter than copper equivalents, deliver capacities over 60 Tbps per strand, multiplying bandwidth per unit of material by orders of magnitude while spanning longer spans with minimal repeaters.^[77] ^[78] This evolution echoes Buckminster Fuller's early observations on telegraphy, where tons of copper once sufficed for transoceanic links, now supplanted by leaner systems yielding exponentially more information flow.^[79]

Societal and Economic Impacts

Achievements in Efficiency and Abundance

Global resource productivity, measured as gross domestic product (GDP) per unit of material input, has risen substantially since the 1970s, with material extraction increasing from 22 billion tonnes to 70 billion tonnes between 1970 and 2010 while GDP expanded at a faster rate, reflecting dematerialization trends.^[80] This efficiency gain—enabling more economic value from fewer resources—has paralleled dramatic welfare improvements, including the reduction of extreme poverty from roughly half the global population in 1950 to about 10% by 2019, as market innovations expanded access to goods and services.^[81] In the energy sector, solar photovoltaic (PV) module prices exemplify ephemeralization through plummeting costs: from approximately $76 per watt in 1977 to under $0.30 per watt by the 2020s, a decline exceeding 99% driven by iterative manufacturing improvements and competitive scaling.^[82] ^[83] These reductions have unlocked abundance in developing economies, where low-cost solar systems now power off-grid communities, boosting productivity in agriculture and small enterprises without relying on traditional infrastructure.^[84] Market-driven incentives have underpinned these outcomes, as entrepreneurial competition—rather than resource rationing—has multiplied effective supplies, countering zero-sum scarcity assumptions with evidence of compounded gains in per capita wealth and life expectancy since mid-century.^[85] ^[86] Such dynamics have elevated billions into prosperity, with global GDP per capita tripling in real terms from 1950 onward amid resource-efficient growth.^[87]

Criticisms and Unintended Consequences

Automation in manufacturing sectors during the 1980s and beyond has exemplified ephemeralization's potential for short-term job displacement, with the United States losing roughly 2 million manufacturing positions between 1980 and 2000 amid rising productivity from robotic and computerized processes.^[88] Empirical analyses attribute much of this to task-specific automation reducing demand for routine labor, contributing to localized unemployment spikes exceeding 1% in affected industries through the early 1990s.^[89] However, longitudinal data reveal net employment gains over time, as efficiency-driven innovations spawn new roles; for instance, personal computer adoption since the 1980s facilitated 15.8 million additional U.S. jobs by enabling service and knowledge-based economies.^[90] Efficiency gains from ephemeralization have raised concerns over exacerbating income inequality, with studies linking automation since 1980 to the displacement of lower-skilled workers and accounting for the majority of U.S. income disparity growth during that period.^[91] Benefits often accrue disproportionately to capital owners and high-skill innovators, widening gaps as per empirical models showing reduced labor shares and elevated top-end concentration.^[92] Nonetheless, aggregate living standards have risen, evidenced by global per capita calorie supply increasing from approximately 2,200 kcal/day in 1961 to over 2,900 kcal/day by 2015, driven by agricultural and logistical efficiencies that doubled food availability in many regions post-World War II.^[93] Rebound effects represent another unintended outcome, where resource efficiencies enable expanded consumption volumes, potentially offsetting per-unit savings; for example, cheaper energy and materials have historically spurred demand in high-consumption economies.^[94] In high-income nations, however, per capita domestic material consumption has decoupled from GDP growth since the 2000s, stabilizing around 10-12 tons annually in countries like those in the OECD, per recent indicators reflecting service-sector shifts and recycling advancements.^[95]^[96] This stabilization tempers alarmist projections, though uneven distribution persists, with high-income per capita footprints remaining 13 times those of low-income counterparts.^[97]

Debates and Limitations

Rebound Effects and Jevons Paradox

In 1865, economist William Stanley Jevons argued in The Coal Question that improvements in the efficiency of steam engines, pioneered by James Watt, did not reduce overall coal consumption in the United Kingdom but instead increased it substantially, as lower effective costs spurred broader industrial expansion and applications.^[98] Between 1830 and 1860, UK coal consumption rose from approximately 30 million tons to over 70 million tons annually, correlating with these efficiency gains that made coal-powered machinery more economically viable across sectors.^[98] Similar dynamics appeared in post-1970s oil markets following efficiency measures prompted by the 1973 and 1979 crises; despite average fuel economy for cars in International Energy Agency (IEA) countries improving by about 50% from 1973 to 1998, oil use in passenger vehicles grew nearly 50% over the same period due to increased vehicle miles traveled and fleet expansion.^[99] Empirical studies reveal variability in rebound magnitudes, with full rebound (100% offset of efficiency savings) observed historically in lighting, where efficiency advances over three centuries—from candles to LEDs—led to equivalent increases in luminous services demanded, negating net energy reductions.^[100] In contrast, direct rebound effects for road vehicles typically range below 50%, with meta-analyses estimating 10-30% offsets from fuel savings encouraging additional driving, though economy-wide effects can amplify this through indirect channels like income effects.^[101] ^[102] Causally, rebound arises from price-mediated demand responses in competitive markets, where efficiency lowers real resource costs, signaling expanded allocation to higher-value uses and yielding net welfare gains despite higher aggregate consumption; regulatory interventions, such as fuel economy standards, often distort these signals by suppressing price adjustments, potentially leading to suboptimal outcomes like accelerated fleet turnover without proportional emissions cuts.^[103] ^[104]

Applicability Boundaries and Empirical Challenges

Ephemeralization encounters fundamental boundaries imposed by physical laws, particularly the second law of thermodynamics, which dictates that entropy increases in any energy conversion process, preventing indefinite efficiency gains toward 100% utilization.^[105] Heat engines, for instance, are theoretically capped by the Carnot efficiency limit, expressed as \eta = 1 - \frac{T_c}{T_h}, where T_c and T_h are the absolute temperatures of the cold and hot reservoirs, respectively; practical implementations, such as internal combustion engines, achieve only 20-40% efficiency due to irreversibilities like friction and heat losses, far below even attainable Carnot values of 50-60% under ideal conditions.^[106] These constraints imply that while incremental improvements are possible through materials and design advances, no technological trajectory can asymptotically approach zero resource input for work output, as waste heat dissipation remains inevitable.^[107] Applicability varies sharply between informational and material domains. In digital realms, such as software algorithms, ephemeralization manifests robustly through near-costless replication and scalability, enabling exponential performance gains without proportional physical inputs. However, for bulk material needs like food production, finite arable land—approximately 1.4 billion hectares globally—imposes hard limits, as efficiency enhancements in yields (e.g., via fertilizers or GMOs) cannot indefinitely expand output amid soil degradation, water scarcity, and population pressures exceeding 8 billion by 2023.^[108] Livestock systems, reliant on feed crops, face amplified constraints, with limited arable expansion potential further restricting adaptive capacity despite productivity tweaks.^[108] Empirical assessments reveal measurement pitfalls in claims of dematerialization, particularly overlooking embedded energies in ostensibly lightweight technologies. Data centers, emblematic of informational efficiency, consumed 1-2% of global electricity in 2022 (around 240-340 TWh), with projections doubling to 945 TWh by 2030 due to AI demands, including substantial embodied energy in server manufacturing and cooling infrastructure that offsets apparent dematerialization.^[51] Systematic reviews of resource decoupling find scant evidence for absolute reductions in material or energy use despite GDP growth; relative efficiencies often mask rising absolute consumption, as 1990-2019 analyses across energy, materials, and emissions show persistent coupling in most economies.^[109] These hidden costs underscore that ephemeralization's purported universality falters when full lifecycle impacts, including upstream extraction and downstream waste, are accounted for, challenging extrapolations of boundless progress.^[110]

References

[1]
Ephemerality: Another radical design concept for the climate revolution
Sep 1, 2023 · Revisiting Bucky Fuller's term for doing “more and more with less and less until eventually, you can do everything with nothing.”Missing: definition | Show results with:definition
[2]
Buckminster Fuller and Systems Theory - UMSL
Ephemeralization is the term coined by Fuller to express the drive to use less material for greater results such as for housing and his geodesic domes. Fuller ...
[3]
What does ephemeralization mean? - Definitions.net
Fuller's vision was that ephemeralization, through technological progress, could result in ever-increasing standards of living for an ever-growing population.Missing: explanation | Show results with:explanation
[4]
Dymaxion Man | The New Yorker
Jun 2, 2008 · The geodesic dome is a prime example of “ephemeralization”; it can enclose more space with less material than virtually any other structure. The ...<|control11|><|separator|>
[5]
Hey Silicon Valley—Buckminster Fuller Has a Lot to Teach You
Mar 29, 2016 · The Internet, ultimately, really is probably the best example of a ephemeralization. When everyone can access the same computing resources by ...
[6]
Rereading R. Buckminster Fuller's Operating Manual for Spaceship ...
Sep 13, 2010 · This study critically surveys the environmental thinking and design philosophy Of R. Buckminster Fuller ... Ephemeralization as ...
[7]
Rereading R. Buckminster Fuller's Operating Manual for Spaceship ...
Aug 10, 2025 · Buckminster Fuller's vision of "a material civilization that would ephemeralize through design and increasingly lightweight materials" (for a ...
[8]
https://www.biblio.com/book/nine-chains-moon-fuller-r-buckminster/d/658307019
[9]
[1ST ED] Nine Chains to the Moon - Weinberg Modern Books
In stock... ephemeralization—doing less with more, a la his Dymaxion projects. The title ... [1ST ED] Nine Chains to the Moon. $500.00. First edition of R ...<|separator|>
[10]
USPS Stamp Bio - Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller
In 1927, after the construction company failed, Fuller was unemployed and contemplated suicide, but he had a remarkable realization. Deciding that he had no ...Missing: failures | Show results with:failures
[11]
Who Was Buckminster Fuller, Anyway?
A series of business failures, compounded with lingering grief over the death of his daughter five years earlier, had made Fuller increasingly despondent.Missing: background | Show results with:background
[12]
What is Ephemeralization and Why it Matters - LifeEdited
Jun 26, 2014 · The other principle is called ephemeralization, a term coined by Buckminster Fuller. He believed that technological advancement would one day ...Missing: definition | Show results with:definition
[13]
https://nextbigideaclub.com/magazine/inventor-future-visionary-life-buckminster-fuller-bookbite/36260/
[14]
Ever More With Ever Less - World Design Organization (WDO)
Apr 27, 2016 · The geodesic dome is a supreme example of this principle of doing more with less—a dome covers the most amount of space with the least amount of ...
[15]
The R. Buckminster Fuller FAQ: Fuller's Ideas About Human Society
The principle of ephemeralization shows we can accomplish more and more functionality with less and less energy, material and time investment, ``we are now able ...
[16]
Ephemeralizing Indie Publishing - Buckminster Fuller Institute
Feb 22, 2014 · Ephemeralization, the societal process by which Fuller emphasized his goals of “doing more with less” would be achieved, is taking place ...
[17]
Tensegrity - Buckminster Fuller Institute
Tensegrity describes a structural-relationship principle in which structural shape is guaranteed by the finitely closed, comprehensively continuous, tensional ...Missing: ephemeralization | Show results with:ephemeralization
[18]
Buckminster Fuller, The World Game, and Livingry - by Bret
Feb 16, 2025 · In Fuller's vision, ephemeralization would eventually lead to post-scarcity—a world where all basic human needs are met without destructive ...<|separator|>
[19]
Fuller, Richard Buckminster - TensegrityWiki
Apr 11, 2022 · Since tensegrity itself is about ephemeralization, light-weighting and the non-conventional structuring of natures forces in radically new ways ...
[20]
The Role of Aluminum in Lightweight Aerospace Structures
Aug 11, 2024 · During World War I, the demand for stronger yet lighter aircraft materials prompted further research and development in aluminum alloys. By ...
[21]
[PDF] Advanced Materials and Their Impact on Aircraft Performance
Advanced materials are transforming aircraft design by improving strength, reducing weight and improving fuel efficiency. Innovations like titanium alloys and ...<|separator|>
[22]
How Aerospace Materials Advanced. Past, Present, Future
Aerospace materials have advanced significantly over the past two centuries as new forms of air travel and innovations in engineering have emerged.
[23]
Advancements in Materials Science - Online Master's in Engineering
Mar 21, 2024 · Several trends have fueled this growing demand, including rising interest in sustainable materials and lightweight metal alloys for aircraft.
[24]
[PDF] Historical Trends and Future Projections of Key Performance ...
This study presents a comprehensive analysis of historical trends and future projections for key performance parameters (KPPs) in commercial turbofan aircraft, ...
[25]
4. Improving Aircraft Performance | Securing the Future of U.S. Air ...
However aircraft productivity and efficiency are measured, they can be improved through advances in aircraft aerodynamics, materials, structures, and other ...
[26]
News: Physics Studies And Importance In Technological Advancement
Aug 6, 2024 · Physics is the basic foundation on which most of the modern developments in technology are based and on which efficiency improvements are continuously made.Missing: less | Show results with:less
[27]
What does it mean for a technology to follow Wright's Law?
Apr 18, 2023 · Technologies that follow Wright's Law get cheaper at a consistent rate, as the cumulative production of that technology increases.<|separator|>
[28]
[PDF] How well do experience curves predict technological progress? A ...
But to the extent that Wright's law implies that cumu- lative production causally influences cost, costs can be driven down by boosting cumulative pro- duction.
[29]
Deriving experience curves: A structured and critical approach ...
This paper systematically compares existing experience curves using empirical data from the PV sector.Missing: compounding | Show results with:compounding
[30]
[PDF] R. Buckminster Fuller's SYNERGETICS - Monoskop
The discoveries, concepts, vocabulary, phraseology-every word- and entire writing style of this book originate exclusively in the mind of R. Buckminster Fuller.
[31]
Design Science - Buckminster Fuller Institute
One example of a generalized principle is: doing more with less. Bucky termed this trend “ephemeralization” (Arnold Toynbee: “etherealization”) and this ...
[32]
HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY - HistoryWorld
The wheel: 3000 BC. The wheel is often quoted as the single most important advance in early technology. It is sometimes said to have evolved from the ...
[33]
Aqueducts Move Water in the Past and Today - USGS.gov
Be it 2,000 years ago in ancient Rome, Italy or today in California, aqueducts were and are essential to get water from a place where it exists in ample supply ...Missing: precursors wheel
[34]
Water Wheels - WaterHistory.org
A typical water wheel was used to drive a millstone. Illustration 1. Water wheels designs in order of increasing complexity and efficiency. Norse wheels (left) ...Missing: precursors | Show results with:precursors
[35]
Watt steam engine | Definition, History, & Facts - Britannica
Sep 29, 2025 · The Watt steam engine is considered the first truly efficient steam engine, as it solved the problem of energy wastage through the use of a separate condenser.
[36]
Maximum efficiencies of engines and turbines, 1700-2000
Jun 26, 2023 · James Watt's (1879) famous improvement of the steam engine boosted efficiency to 2 to 3%, still extremely inefficient, but far better than all ...
[37]
The Agricultural Revolution | Western Civilization II (HIS 104) – Biel
The Agricultural Revolution was an unprecedented increase in agricultural production in Britain, linked to new practices like crop rotation and selective ...
[38]
The Agricultural Revolution | History of Western Civilization II
The Agricultural Revolution was an unprecedented increase in agricultural production in Britain, linked to practices like crop rotation and selective breeding.
[39]
Ford Implements the Moving Assembly Line - This Month in ...
What took workers 12.5 hours to assemble was reduced to just 93 minutes. ... The significant reduction in production time demonstrated that factories could ...
[40]
Ford's assembly line starts rolling | December 1, 1913 - History.com
His innovation reduced the time it took to build a car from more than 12 hours to one hour and 33 minutes. Ford's Model T, introduced in 1908, was simple ...
[41]
Assembly Line Revolution | Articles - Ford Motor Company
Sep 3, 2020 · The new process made it so that the Model T was now built in only ninety minutes. ... assembly line was the drop in price for the Model T.Missing: 93 | Show results with:93
[42]
History of Aluminum In The Aerospace Industry - Metal Supermarkets
Feb 8, 2016 · Discover the role of aluminum in aircraft & the aerospace industry. Learn why aluminum is used for aircraft bodies & aluminum aircraft ...
[43]
[PDF] Systematic Survey on the Development of Aluminum Alloys for Aircraft
Aug 10, 2025 · In order to win the war, lighter and faster fighter planes were needed, and the aluminum alloy had to be even stronger than Duralumin. In ...<|separator|>
[44]
Milestones:Invention of the First Transistor at Bell Telephone ...
This was the beginning of solid state electronics which quickly reduced the size and power requirements of existing electronic tube based electronic devices.
[45]
Buckminster Fuller and the Geodesic Biodome Greenhouse
Jul 9, 2020 · Over 300,000 geodesic domes were built during Bucky's lifetime. Geodesic domes are commonly thought of as the most energy-efficient structure ...Missing: 1950s | Show results with:1950s
[46]
What is Moore's law? | imec
Back in 1965, Gordon Moore predicted that the number of transistors on a microchip would double approximately every two years. Transistors are tiny electronic ...
[47]
Understanding Moore's Law: Is It Still Relevant in 2025? - Investopedia
In 1965, Gordon Moore posited that roughly every two years, the number of transistors on microchips will double. Commonly referred to as Moore's Law, this ...
[48]
Moore's Law: The Beginnings - ECS - The Electrochemical Society
The law, which states that the number of transistors on a silicon chip would double every year (later revised to every two years), has paved the way for ...Missing: original | Show results with:original
[49]
Virtualize Servers | ENERGY STAR
Virtualization enables you to use fewer servers, thus directly decreasing electricity consumption. Reducing the number of servers in a data center also allows ...The Present: Many... · Big Opportunities In Small... · Savings And Costs
[50]
Power usage effectiveness - Google Data Centers
For Q1 2020, TTM PUE was 1.10, and quarterly PUE was 1.09. For individual campuses, our lowest TTM PUE was 1.07 in Oregon. Our lowest quarterly PUE was 1.08 in ...
[51]
Data Centres and Data Transmission Networks - IEA
Jul 11, 2023 · Since 2010, data centre energy use (excluding crypto) has grown only moderately despite the strong growth in demand for data centre services, ...
[52]
United States Data Center Energy Usage Report
Current study results show data center electricity consumption increased by about 4% from 2010-2014, a large shift from the 24% percent increase estimated from ...<|separator|>
[53]
Optimizing LLMs for Performance and Accuracy with Post-Training ...
Aug 1, 2025 · Quantization is one of the most effective ways to supercharge model inference—delivering big wins in latency, throughput, and memory efficiency ...
[54]
[PDF] A Survey on Efficient Inference for Large Language Models - arXiv
This line of optimization (1) often requires costly pre-training or a smaller amount of fine-tuning cost to retain or recover the model ability, and (2) is.
[55]
The History of LED Lights
Jul 19, 2022 · In 2006, LED light efficiency reached 100 lumens per watt. This would be more efficient at the time than any other type of light (apart from ...
[56]
Six Core Insights from the LED Revolution - Inside Lighting
Jun 24, 2025 · Faster Than Any Lighting Tech in History. The researchers estimate that LED luminous efficacy has increased by 10 lumens per watt per year ...
[57]
LED Adoption Report - Department of Energy
The new report estimates annual US energy savings of 1.3 quadrillion Btu (quads) in 2018 due to LED adoption, equivalent to cost savings of $14.7 billion for ...
[58]
LED Lighting | Department of Energy
Residential LEDs -- especially ENERGY STAR rated products -- use at least 75% less energy, and last up to 25 times longer, than incandescent lighting.Energy Savings · How Leds Are Different · Led Products
[59]
Lighting - IEA
Lighting is a major source of energy demand, though it is one area where energy use has stalled or even declined, thanks to new more-efficient options.
[60]
Environmental Impact of Additive Manufacturing - 3DEO - Metal ...
This could mean the difference between 95% waste with CNC machining and < 1% waste using metal AM. ... Previous PostMetal Additive Manufacturing Will Drastically ...
[61]
What Data Indicate 3d Printing's Waste Reduction Impact? → Question
Apr 10, 2025 · Traditional subtractive methods often have MURs as low as 20-30% for complex parts, meaning that 70-80% of the raw material ends up as waste.
[62]
Is Additive Manufacturing an Environmentally and Economically ...
Across multiple industries, AM has been used to reduce material use in final parts by 35–80%, and recent publications have predicted that AM will enable the ...
[63]
Advanced lightweight materials for Automobiles: A review
With varying reinforcement types, composites may contribute to a weight reduction from 15% to 40% and offer other attractive properties for the automotive ...<|control11|><|separator|>
[64]
[PDF] Advanced High-Strength Steel—Basics and Applications in ... - INFO
Several factors drive the material R&D and selection for automotive applications, including safety, fuel efficiency, environmentalism, manufacturability, ...Missing: resource | Show results with:resource
[65]
Current Trends in Automotive Lightweighting Strategies and Materials
Since 2010, aluminum usage in the automotive industry has grown from 154 kg (340 lbs) per vehicle to 208 kg (459 lbs) per vehicle in 2020 [47].
[66]
Lightweight Materials for Cars and Trucks - Department of Energy
Lightweight materials offer great potential for increasing vehicle efficiency. A 10% reduction in vehicle weight can result in a 6%-8% fuel economy improvement.
[67]
Advanced Lightweight Materials for Automobiles: A review
Aug 6, 2025 · Their lightweight nature contributes significantly to reducing vehicle weight, enhancing fuel efficiency, and lowering emissions, which are ...
[68]
How The GM EV1 Kicked Off A Modern EV Revolution In The 1990s
Sep 30, 2024 · Its 26 lead-acid batteries provided a usable range of up to 90 miles, which was a great number for a mid-1990s EV.
[69]
The Evolution of Lithium-Ion Batteries - eszoneo.com
In the 1990s, lithium-ion batteries had an energy density of around 150 Wh/kg, which was impressive for that time. However, due to continuous research and ...
[70]
The Rise of Batteries in Six Charts and Not Too Many Numbers - RMI
Jan 25, 2024 · RMI forecasts that in 2030, top-tier density will be between 600 and 800 Wh/kg, costs will fall to $32–$54 per kWh, and battery sales will rise ...
[71]
2020 Tesla Model S Review, Pricing, and Specs - Car and Driver
Rating 4.5 · Review by Drew DorianThe 2020 Model S is now only available as a Long Range Plus model with 402 miles of range, which was accomplished after Tesla made thoughtful changes.
[72]
The price of batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades
Jun 4, 2021 · The price of lithium-ion battery cells declined by 97% in the last three decades. A battery with a capacity of one kilowatt-hour that cost $7500 in 1991 was ...
[73]
Lithium-Ion Battery Pack Prices See Largest Drop Since 2017 ...
Dec 10, 2024 · Lithium-ion battery pack prices dropped 20% from 2023 to a record low of $115 per kilowatt-hour, according to analysis by research provider BloombergNEF (BNEF).
[74]
Personal Transportation Factsheet | Center for Sustainable Systems
69% of VMT occurred in urban areas.1. Vehicles and Occupancy. U.S. average vehicle occupancy declined from 1.87 persons per vehicle mile in 1977 to 1.5 in 2019.Missing: ride- | Show results with:ride-
[75]
[PDF] Impacts of Ridesourcing on VMT, Parking Demand ... - ROSA P
7.2 Vehicle Occupancy. Including all 416 rides, the average vehicle occupancy was 1.36 passengers per ride (Figure 7.1). When we consider the VMT with ...
[76]
The Impact of ride-hailing on vehicle miles traveled - Urbanism Next
The average vehicle occupancy is 1.4 passengers per ride, while the distance weighted vehicle occupancy is 1.3 without accounting for deadheading and 0.8 when ...<|separator|>
[77]
Fiber vs. Copper Showdown: Unraveling the Bandwidth Battle and ...
Mar 12, 2024 · Fiber offers higher bandwidth (up to 60 TB/s) and better reliability, while copper has lower bandwidth (around 10 GB/s) and is more susceptible ...
[78]
https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/10/21/3044463.htm
[79]
Buckminster Fuller - The Outstanding Thinker - C6XTY
Ephemeralization. Ephemeralization was a central theory to Fuller's work. When Fuller was a boy many tons of copper wire were required to lay a transoceanic ...
[80]
Global Material Flows and Resource Productivity: Forty Years of ...
The global results show a massive increase in materials extraction from 22 billion tonnes (Bt) in 1970 to 70 Bt in 2010, and an acceleration in material ...
[81]
Extreme poverty: How far have we come, and how far do we still ...
Nov 22, 2021 · In the early 21st century, global poverty reduction accelerated, and in 13 years, our global measure of extreme poverty was halved again by 2014 ...
[82]
Solar Power Ever Cheaper - Human Progress
The average price of silicon photovoltaic (PV) cells fell from $76 per watt in 1977 to $4 per watt in 2008, a drop of nearly 95 percent.
[83]
Solar (photovoltaic) panel prices - Our World in Data
Solar (photovoltaic) panel prices vs. cumulative capacity. Learning curve for solar panels. This data is expressed in USdollars per watt, adjusted for inflation ...
[84]
Documenting a Decade of Cost Declines for PV Systems - NREL
Feb 10, 2021 · A decade ago, the module alone cost around $2.50 per watt, and now an entire utility-scale PV system costs around $1 per watt,” said NREL Senior ...
[85]
As the world shifted to free markets, poverty rates plummeted
Nov 13, 2018 · As the world shifted to free markets, opponents warned (and continue to warn) of dire poverty, falling educational standards and disease, as free markets take ...
[86]
Innovating Our Way to Energy Abundance—and Climate Change
Sep 13, 2013 · The market-driven innovation that has multiplied supplies of oil and natural gas will also make it that much more difficult to quit carbon.
[87]
Poverty, Growth, and Inequality over the Next 50 Years
Global poverty has fallen dramatically over the last two centuries, and the fall has intensified in recent decades, raising hopes that it could be eliminated ...Missing: efficiency | Show results with:efficiency
[88]
The Transformation of Manufacturing and the Decline in US ...
Continuing a pattern that dates to the mid-1970s, the figure shows that the United States lost about 2 million manufacturing jobs between 1980 and 2000. After ...
[89]
[PDF] Hearings on the Impact of Technology on the Workforce of the 1980's
May 17, 1983 · These results are shown in Table 3. Although the maximum overall job displacement rate in manufacturing of 1 percent through 1990 is not ...Missing: empirical | Show results with:empirical
[90]
Five lessons from history on AI, automation, and employment
Nov 28, 2017 · We estimate that the introduction of the personal computer, for instance, has enabled the creation of 15.8 million net new jobs in the United ...
[91]
Study: Automation drives income inequality | MIT News
Nov 21, 2022 · New data suggest most of the growth in income inequality since 1980 comes from automation displacing less-educated workers.Missing: evidence | Show results with:evidence
[92]
Automation and New Tasks: How Technology Displaces and ...
Apr 30, 2019 · As a recent example, advances in robotics technologies since the 1980s have allowed firms to automate a wide range of production tasks in.
[93]
Food Supply - Our World in Data
Over the decades since 1961, there has been a consistent global uptrend in the per capita calorie supply, reflecting changes and advancements in food production ...Missing: post WWII
[94]
Innovation, automation, and inequality: Policy challenges in the race ...
The model predicts that automation leads to an increasing share of college graduates, increasing income and wealth inequality, and a declining labor share.
[95]
Domestic material consumption per capita - Our World in Data
Domestic material consumption reports the amount of materials used in a national economy. It is the sum of materials extracted domestically and the amount ...<|separator|>
[96]
[PDF] Global Material Resources Outlook to 2060 - OECD
Population and converging per capita income growth drive the growth in materials use. However, structural change, especially in non-OECD countries, and ...
[97]
The global material footprint - — SDG Indicators - UN.org.
On a per-capita basis, high-income countries rely on 9.8 metric tons of primary materials extracted elsewhere in the world. Material footprint per capita, 2000 ...
[98]
The Coal Question | Online Library of Liberty
The Myth of Resource Efficiency affirms the Jevons Paradox to make the claim that resource efficiency doesn't solve the problem of scarcity, and seeks to apply ...
[99]
Oil Crises and Climate Challenges: 30 Years of Energy Use in IEA ...
Mar 2, 2004 · This has served to limit improvements in average fuel efficiency. As a consequence, oil use for cars grew almost 50% between 1973 and 1998.
[100]
Rebound effects for lighting - ScienceDirect.com
Over 3 centuries, increases in lighting energy efficiency have led to 100% rebound. Such gains create economic benefits despite the nominal absence of climate ...
[101]
The rebound effect in road transport: A meta-analysis of empirical ...
The rebound effect explains why energy efficiency improvements usually lead to less than proportional reductions in energy consumption. It stems from the ...
[102]
[PDF] Do energy efficiency improvements reduce energy use? Empirical ...
Our findings point to economy-wide rebound effects of 78% to 101% after two years in France, Germany, Italy, the U.K., and the U.S. These findings imply that ...
[103]
Energy efficiency and economy-wide rebound effects: A review of ...
The results are broadly consistent and suggest that economy-wide rebound effects may erode more than half of the expected energy savings from improved energy ...
[104]
[PDF] Vehicle Fuel-Economy and Air-Pollution Standards - Analysis Group
Jun 28, 2018 · They also suggest that the rebound effect tends to decrease as income increases (because the cost of fuel becomes relatively less important to ...
[105]
Thermodynamic Limits on Efficiency – Body Physics 2.0
Energy Conservation, or the First Law of Thermodynamics, only ensures that the efficiency cannot be greater than 100%, so the 20% efficiency of the body and ...Missing: ephemeralization | Show results with:ephemeralization
[106]
Carnot's Perfect Heat Engine: The Second Law of Thermodynamics ...
A Carnot engine operating between two given temperatures has the greatest possible efficiency of any heat engine operating between these two temperatures.
[107]
Carnot Limit - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
The Carnot limit refers to the maximum efficiency achievable by heat engines, which is determined by the temperatures of the heat source (T1) and heat sink ...Missing: implications | Show results with:implications
[108]
When arable land is the limit: Paths for future livestock production
Limited arable land further restricts its adaptive capacity, highlighting the need for more sustainable and efficient livestock strategies. A more resilient ...
[109]
A systematic review of the evidence on decoupling of GDP, resource ...
We evaluate empirical studies of decoupling related to final/useful energy, exergy, use of material resources, as well as CO2 and total GHG emissions. We find ...
[110]
[PDF] Decoupling debunked - European Environmental Bureau
The report finds no empirical evidence for large-scale decoupling of economic growth from environmental pressures, and that such decoupling is unlikely to ...