Rocky Mountain Visions: A Review Essay*

Smil, Vaclav

doi:10.1111/j.1728-4457.2000.00163.x

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…As Smil (2000) points out, it is hard not to be sceptical that the utopian vision presented in Natural Capitalism and endorsed here will not founder on the rocks of human nature and unanticipated side-effects which have scuppered previous utopian visions. So, what could be different this time?…”

Section: Stimulating Social Changementioning

confidence: 79%

“…a 90% reduction in intensity) would be necessary to achieve environmental sustainability. These books have come in for both high praise and heavy criticism (see Myers, 1999;Elkington, 2000;Herring, 2000;and Smil, 2000). Whilst there is little disagreement on the desirability of the principles proposed in Natural Capitalism, there is much scepticism about the extent to which these principles can be put into practice and the extent to which purely technological changes will lead to a more sustainable society.…”

Section: The Factor Four Revolution and Its Criticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Resource Efficiency and Service Provision

Foxon

2000

Energy & Environment

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This paper addresses the possibility that improvements in energy and resource efficiency, together with a move towards the service economy, could help to stimulate the more profound social changes needed for sustainable development. The vision of resource efficiency improvements proposed in Factor Four and Natural Capitalism is discussed. It is argued that the key novel ingredient is the idea of moving towards a service economy, based upon the provision and sale of services, such as thermal comfort instead of energy, domestic services instead of appliances, and information services instead of printed matter. It is argued that this could lead to new relations between consumers and suppliers, a move towards sufficiency as well as efficiency, and could contribute significantly to moves towards more environmentally sustainable development.

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