[ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS AND ECOLOGY]. The Coal Question; An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of Our Coal Mines

London: Macmillan, 1906. Third edition, revised, with a new Preface by the editor A.W. Flux. Very good. 8vo. l (i.e. 50], [2], 467, [1] pp. With two plates of statistical charges. Original brick-red publisher's cloth, edges untrimmed (some gatherings roughly opened, particularly those of the Preface and pp. 281-288 creased and now quite proud, Preface with some underlining in red pencil, binder's blanks with offsetting from pastedowns; rear hinge just starting to crack). The spine is a little dulled, otherwise the cloth binding is remarkably bright and crisp. Apart from the Preface and pp. 281-288, this copy is practically unopened. BEAUTIFUL COPY OF (truncated) THE "ALARMINGLY PRESCIENT" ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMIC THEORY NOW DESCRIBED AS THE "JEVONS PARADOX" WHICH IS CONSIDERED ONE OF THE PIONEERING INSIGHTS INTO GLOBAL WARMING, PREDICTING THE DISASTROUS RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN "MORE EFFICIENT" COAL PRODUCTION AND THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF BRITAIN. THE JEVONS PARADOX IS ALSO UTILIZED TODAY IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INCREASED SOFTWARE EFFICIENCY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, AND HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS "THE MOST IMPORTANT IDEA IN AI."

In "The Coal Question; An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of Our Coal Mines" (first published in 1865), Jevons created the alarmingly prescient work of "backfire" environmental economics and energy consumption theory now known as the Jevons Paradox (or Jevons Effect); here the genius polymath argued convincingly that while technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource is consumed (reducing the amount necessary for any single use), the falling cost of use INCREASES demand -- the result being that the use of said resource is INCREASED, rather than decreased. Even today, most government agencies assume that advances in "energy efficiency" will lower resource consumption, ignoring the inherent Jevons Paradox, to the peril of all life on Earth. Brinda Ann Thomas has convincingly argued that Jevons Paradox may be applied not only to the study of climate change but computer software efficiency (see her "Jevons' Paradox and the Energy Rebound Effect for Software" in Medium, online).

"The curse of energy efficiency, better known as the Jevons Paradox -- the idea that increased energy (and material-resource) efficiency leads not to conservation but increased use -- was first raised by William Stanley Jevons in the nineteenth century. Although forgotten for most of the twentieth century, the Jevons Paradox has been rediscovered in recent decades and stands squarely at the center of today’s environmental dispute. [...] Jevons had no real answer to the paradox he raised. Britain could either rapidly use up its cheap source of fuel -- the coal on which its industrialization rested -- or it could use it up more slowly. In the end, he chose to use it up rapidly: 'If we lavishly and boldly push forward in the creation of our riches, both material and intellectual, it is hard to overestimate the pitch of beneficial influence to which we may attain in the present. But the maintenance of such a position is physically impossible. We have to make the momentous choice between brief but true greatness and longer continued mediocrity.'" (SOURCE: John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark and Richard York, "Capitalism and the Curse of Energy Efficiency: The Return of the Jevons Paradox," Chapter 2 in their The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth Medium, published online in Monthly Review, 2010, Vol. 62, No. 6).

Jevons (1835-1882) is recognized as THE founder of "modern" economics; indeed, his "General Mathematical Theory of Political Economy" (1862) is considered the start of the mathematical method in economics itself. Jevons also two logic machines, the first he named a "logical piano," the second a "logical abacus." These were pioneering devices that could solve complex mathematical problems with superhuman speed (see J.A.N. Lee, Computer Pioneers, IEEE Computer Society, online). While Jevons referred to his devices as logical machines, what he created was a simple, mechanical digital computer, perhaps the first successful one of its kind. Whereas Babbage's "analytical engine" existed only in theory, Jevons' logical piano was actually made (by a clock maker); it is now regarded as the antecedent of Alan Turing's mechanized logic computer, the "Universal Turing Machine" which is the foundation of all computational and computer theory.

Concerning the Jevons Paradox and AI, see for instance Charles Rubenfeld, "Jevons Paradox: The Most Important Idea in AI
Thoughts on AI and 'The End of Software'" (Substack, online). Rubenfeld names other technological advances which result in Jevons Paradox: Data Storage (while costs have declined, usage has dramatically increased); Data Analysis; CGI in movie production; and even Healthcare (innovations in technology, pharmacology, and surgery have only increased the demand for healthcare). (Inventory #: 4320)