{"id":3095,"date":"2016-06-05T18:42:11","date_gmt":"2016-06-05T16:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/?p=3095&lang=en"},"modified":"2016-06-05T19:06:18","modified_gmt":"2016-06-05T17:06:18","slug":"energy-is-the-goose-that-lays-golden-eggs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/?p=3095&lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Energy is the goose that lays golden eggs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Without energy, homo sapiens<\/em> would be reduced to what all the other species do:\u00a0survive.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Much discussions and much arguments are exchanged about what distinguishes human beings from other animals: intelligence, language, conscious of their finiteness, and so on. <\/span>Naturalists question all of this and point to observations of smart octopus, elephant memories or ape-like languages. <\/span>Religions rely on a God creator and\u00a0chosen people.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But there are two elements that certainly distinguish our species from others: the use of energy, and artistic expression.<\/span><\/p>\n

From a quantitative perspective, energy is the goose that lays golden eggs. <\/span>Its use allows us to create and act beyond what our bodies are capable of doing, from cooking dishes up\u00a0to sending space probes beyond the solar system.<\/span><\/p>\n

Without energy no wealth creation is possible, as this diagram shows with an excellent correlation between the use of carbon sources and the gross domestic product of the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"gdp_vs_carbon\"<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

It shows that for every ton of carbon used [1]<\/a> the world’s GDP increases by $ 150. In other terms: for each\u00a03.67\u00a0ton\u00a0of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere, humanity creates a wealth being worth $ 150.\u00a0 Of course, this economic measurement is somewhat simplistic, but representative of an indisputable progress.<\/p>\n

With the help of such same progress we can expect an ever more efficient harvesting of the energy provided to us by the Sun, as fossil fuel, although with a multi-million years delay, or as daily irradiation,\u00a0 and also that is contained in the <\/span>planet Earth, as\u00a0geothermal flux or fissile material. <\/span>To complicate things by artificially making energy<\/span> more expensive is the result of a weird modern eschatology, that of a programmed Weltuntergang<\/em> (doomsday), as if there were a guilt to use the resources that are at our disposal. <\/span>I hope that this aberration will be only temporary.<\/span><\/p>\n

Art is the qualitative corollary of energy; the value it creates is huge but priceless (forget the mercantile value of certain works, it does not matter). <\/span>Without being freed of worrying for survival there is no possible artistic creation, and the unveiling of our human spirit could not take place, even\u00a0small parts of it. <\/span>What would we do without literature, without music, without arts, without dramas and comedies, without science too? <\/span>Darkness would threatens us. <\/span>Artists know this and also know that they can count on a society that has built a proper framework within which they can express themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

The genius is in the art that energy makes possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a>
\nPlease note that fossil fuels represent the vast majority of the energy used; coal-oil-gas make 86.3%, hydro 6.8%,\u00a0nuclear 4.4%, and the others 2.5%, among which the so-called renewables.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Without energy, homo sapiens would be reduced to what all the other species do:\u00a0survive. Much discussions and much arguments are exchanged about what distinguishes human beings from other animals: intelligence, language, conscious of their finiteness, and so on. Naturalists question all of this and point to observations of smart octopus, elephant memories or ape-like languages. … Continue reading \u00ab\u00a0Energy is the goose that lays golden eggs\u00a0\u00bb<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":6,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[35,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","category-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}