Do it for your country!

Growth, some believe, is inextricably tied with energy. But is it? Does increased energy consumption lead to better quality of life? Or does cheap, abundant (seemingly!) fuel cause indirectly obesity and diabetes, pollution, waste, etc?

Take for instance Europe with a collective economy larger than that of the US.
It has considerably lower levels of inequality; provides universal health care with better overall outcomes; and enforces stricter environmental, health and safety regulations--all on half the energy per person as in the US.

Vaclav Smil illustrates this phenomenon in a recent article entitled "Science, energy, ethics, and civilization." He notes that there is an inflection point for many quality of life measures at around 100 gigajoules/year per person. Above that, indicators improve very little. For comparison the United States uses 330 gigajoules/year per person. Smil thinks consumption above 200 gigajoules is actually counterproductive.

Humans are energy-gathering machines. If they did not gather more energy than they expend, they would instantly die out. Every organism on the planet seeks to maximize its energy gain. But as with any adaptive strategy, it eventually becomes maladaptive. If an organism cannot evolve to match changing conditions--in this case, rapid fossil fuel depletion, climate change, soil degradation and so on--then dieoff or extinction can follow.

One way around this, according to experts like Kurt Cobb, is to use some strong attachment of the race, like nation or God! 'To say one needs to use less energy for the good of humanity has very limited appeal. To say one needs to do it for God, king and country is a move in the right direction.'