Eli5 Why did fossil fuels bring about such a huge increase in standard of living if they are bad for the environment?
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It’s almost something you can’t even compare, the amt of energy used, and available, to mankind before and after the industrial revolution. For the longest time, investing in energy and fossil fuels was the single greatest bang for your buck. Even with the downsides and costs associated with it, and as those became more widely known and discussed, it remained the biggest bang for your buck investment you could make for any given population.
Fossil fuels and energy investments, as well as subsidies, also generally affected/affect many parts of the economy at once. Cheaper gas means people can afford to travel, it means goods are cheaper to move, more energy means more machines, which means more goods and services available, etc. This is a very large part of why it is so incredibly difficult to quit fossil fuels, and why governments around the world subsidize fuel. Generally, it makes everything cheaper.
Also fossil fuels specifically were used because of the relative abundance and the fact that they are usually pretty dense in energy. Then, over time, we became dependant upon them, because there wasn’t anything that could easily and cheaply replace them. It made sense to use this available resource, rather than investing in or researching alternative. Especially early on, there weren’t as many alternatives to generate power at scale for society.
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