Energy Set Us Free

For John, BLUF:  The author's point is that the ability to extract energy, and the ability to use that energy to do work, were important to transforming the world economies from being based on slavery and serfdom to being based on the efforts of free men and women.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Samizdata quote of the day

From Samizdata, by Mr Johnathan Pearce (London), 7 August 2022.

Here is the lede plus one:

“When did you hear any public figure extol cheap energy as an agent of poverty alleviation? When did you hear any historian describe how coal, and later oil, liberated the mass of humanity from back-breaking drudgery and led to the elimination of slavery?  For 10,000 years, the primary source of energy was human muscle-power, and emperors on every continent found ways to harness and exploit their fellows.  But why bother with slaves when you can use a barrel of sticky black stuff to do the work of a hundred men – and without needing to be fed or housed?  The reason no one says these things (other than Matt Ridley) is to be blunt, that it is unfashionable. The high-status view is that we are brutalising Gaia, that politicians are in hock to Big Oil, and that we all ought to learn to get by with less – a view that is especially easy to take if you spend the lockdown being paid to stay in your garden, and have no desire to go back to commuting.”

– Dan Hannan

I remember reading TS Ashton’s book on the Industrial Revolution many years ago as an undergraduate, and it was emphatic that no serious civilisation lifts out of poverty without an Industrial Revolution.  Even Karl Marx, wrong as he was on so much around economics, gave grudging respect to the IR in his Communist Manifesto.  (Old Soviet propaganda posters would show pictures of rosy-cheeked workers in front of factories belching out smoke.)

Are we charging toward a major effort to limit energy use?  Are we charging toward a world where the production of food is limited?  Are our betters moving us toward a global planet popultion of 3 Billion people, vice the current 7.9 Billion?

As to that last point, one can read about it at A Planet of 3 Billion:  Mapping Humanity's Long History of Ecological Destruction and Finding Our Way to a Resilient Future | A Global Citizen's Guide to Saving the Planet, by Author Dr Chris Tucker.  I don't agree with Dr Tucker and we have exchanged friendly EMails.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff