The original article can be read as “Schlumpfs graphic 123” in the online Nebelspalter of 9 September 2024.
We should not forget what the historically unique prosperity that so many people on this planet enjoy today is based on: the utilization of fossil energy sources such as coal, oil and gas, which began in the middle of the 19th century. However, these “fossil fuels” are increasingly gaining a reputation as “climate sinners” because fears of a climate catastrophe are being increasingly stoked. This is why their use is to be increasingly restricted and soon abandoned altogether.
However, such a net-zero CO2 policy has negative side effects:
- It ignores the fundamental role that fossil fuels have played in the progress of mankind over the last 170 years,
- It jeopardizes the chances of people who are still living in poverty today to catch up with our level of prosperity,
- it ignores how important fossil fuels are for humanity to adapt to a warming world.
What is important:
– The world’s energy consumption has risen steadily since 1850 – and at a much faster rate since 1950.
– For a long time, this additional consumption was covered almost exclusively by fossil fuels – even today, more than 80 percent of global energy consumption comes from oil, coal and gas.
– Thanks to this enormous increase in fossil energy, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty has been reduced from 90 to 10 percent.
The book that most comprehensively describes the importance of fossil energy in terms of improving human living conditions is by the American philosopher and energy expert Alex Epstein: “Fossil Future”, 2022 (see here). Epstein’s approach plays a decisive role from the point of view of the “flourishing of humanity” (he calls it “human flourishing”): only in this way can issues such as poverty reduction, life expectancy, child mortality, hunger, education, etc. be given their appropriate weight.
Until 1850, wood was the only source of energy
The availability of energy plays a central role in all these aspects of human well-being: people need energy to produce food and clothing, to build homes, factories, hospitals, schools and sanitary facilities, to transport goods, to protect the environment, to secure clean water and so on. Until the middle of the 19th century, the only source of energy available to him, apart from his own muscle power and that of farm animals, was almost exclusively wood as a building material or fuel.
80 percent of global energy consumption is fossil
This changed fundamentally around 1850 with the Industrial Revolution. The following chart shows the development of the world’s total energy consumption, broken down by energy source, from 1800 to 2023 (the chart comes from the website “Our World in Data”, see here):

The graphic shows impressively how fossil fuels have fundamentally changed the global energy mix: From 1850, coal (gray) supplemented traditional biomass (brown) as the first new energy source. Oil (blue) followed from 1910 and gas (purple) from 1930. This fossil fuel mix satisfied the hunger for energy that had been growing rapidly among more and more people since the Second World War. And this has remained the case to this day: in 2023, a good 81% of the world’s energy will still be generated from coal, oil and gas.
What explains this unique dominance of fossil fuels? Epstein attributes this to four characteristics: coal, oil and gas are
- low-cost
- consumption-based (on-demand)
- versatile
- globally available (global-scale)
Because fossil fuels are comparatively cheap, they can also be used in poorer economies. Because they are available when they are needed, they offer a reliable supply, which is crucial. Because they can be used to generate electricity, power many machines and produce important materials, their range of applications is extremely diverse. And finally, they are available to billions of people all over the world.
Only nuclear energy has similar properties
With this full package of desirable properties, fossil fuels clearly set themselves apart from all other energy sources: Epstein calls this “ultra-cost-effectiveness”. Of the other energy sources, only nuclear power has an almost comparable balance sheet. However, its use is being hampered in many Western countries by ideologically fueled fears.
Thanks to fossils, people live longer and are richer
So what impact has the massive use of fossil fuels had on human living conditions? In his book, Alex Epstein refers in this context to the three areas of life expectancy, gross domestic product per capita and population size. All of these criteria remain more or less constant at a low level for a long time, before shooting up sharply from 1850 onwards: For the first time in history, it is possible for many more people to live side by side, and for these people to still live much longer and be much richer on average.
The use of coal, oil and gas has therefore massively improved people’s living conditions in every respect. I would like to back up this finding with a second graph that shows how the proportion of people living in extreme poverty has developed between 1820 and 2015 (this graph is also from “Our World in Data”, see here):

First of all, this graph shows how the entire world population has grown in step with the spread of fossil fuels: From 1.1 billion in 1820 to 7.4 billion in 2015 – by 2023, there were as many as 8.1 billion people.
The proportion of people living in extreme poverty has fallen from 90 to 10 percent
But even more astonishing is the course of the brown area below: it shows how many people have to live on less than 1.90 international dollars a day, which is the criterion for extreme poverty. In 1820, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, this was one billion people. By 1990, both categories were growing, with the number of the extremely poor increasing only moderately, while the number of the non-poor rose more sharply. And then the unbelievable happens: although the total number of people continues to rise rapidly, the number of people living in extreme poverty falls for the first time: in 2015, it is only 0.7 billion. This means that the proportion of the poorest people has fallen from 90 percent to an astonishing 10 percent!
And this development – I repeat – was only possible with a new energy supply that is inexpensive, reliable, versatile and available to billions of people everywhere: fossil fuels. You have to be blind to ignore or deny the incredible advances in civilization that have been made possible by the use of coal, oil and gas to date.
Some of you may object: That’s all well and good, but the rising concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels is causing massive climate damage that is destroying all this prosperity – you can already see that today, and it’s getting worse. I will be devoting my next column to this aspect in a week’s time.
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