Interesting, the Javons paradox, founded on the study of actual data reveals a trend in coal consuption 150 years ago.
So sombody takes that data, then universally applies it, without further study, to all forms of fuel, including gasoline.
Great pseudo science to make pseudo arguments with. Well done.
So I did my own rather unscientific study using the internet to come up with this.
I found two graphs that look very official. The first is a graph of Total US Gasoline Retail Deliveries by Refineries from 1985 to 2010;
U.S. Total Gasoline Retail Deliveries by Refiners(Thousand Gallons per Day)
The second is a pdf file with a number of graphs on it, but the one I like is on page 5 and it shows the fleet CAFE standards observed from 1976 to 2010
http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/rul...ary_Report.pdf
As far as I know, this exclusive study is the first one of it's kind in 150 years attempting to corelate the Javons Paradox to what I will now call, Rooster's Paradox.
My exhaustive study which took me about 15 minutes, mostly searching with Google has led me to a conclusion about gasoline and the Javons Paradox.
They don't line up.
In the graph concerning fuel deliveries (I have to believe that all the fuel delivered was used, so fuel delivered = fuel consumed) you can see some wild swings in fuel consumption. And on the graph concerning fleet average fuel economy, you see a much more steady track. In fact, between 1985 and 2005 there appears to be no corelation at all between the two, as if consumption of fuel was driven by some factor that excludes efficiency alltogether. The graphs do corelate after 2005 however, in that there was a dramatic increase in fleet fuel economy between 2005 and 2010 while fuel useage dropped significantly over the same period.
There, I've done all the work I want to for now. As I see it, the Roosters Paradox states that either there is no corelation at all, or fuel efficiency actually does lower fuel consumption. So the Roosters Paradox is actually a paradox of Javons paradox...sooo...crap I think I just made a black hole with that sentence.
I'm sure we can find more graphs elsewhere and change the argument. However, because I'm the first, by default my Paradox is right, and it must remain so for at least 150 years...until someone tries to correlate the Rooster's paradox with peak unicorn tear consumption.
But as Mark Twain once said "There are three kinds of lies. Lies, Damned lies and statistics." Or something to that effect.