Eli5 Why did fossil fuels bring about such a huge increase in standard of living if they are bad for the environment?
In: 0
Society requires energy. Energy to cook food, energy to travel, energy to provide light. Through most of human history we’ve gotten this energy from using beasts of burden and from burning wood. These are good but are not efficient and have limitations.
Fossil fuels contain a LOT of energy in a very compact form. You can get the same amount of energy out of a small amount of fossil fuels than you could from wood or the work animals do.
The problem is that fossil fuels having been doing the job of storing a lot of carbon in the ground for us. It’s safe being in the ground. When we dig it up and burn it, it goes into our atmosphere, which is not good for the planet.
But our global society has now been built for over a hundred years around the efficient and cheap energy usage of fossil fuels. It’s going to be very difficult to switch to a different source of fuel in a quick manner, but that’s the challenge in front of us right now.
Latest Answers