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Energy and Humans: A Brief History

The Emergence of Industrialized Energy
Human beings have burned coal for heat energy on a small scale since ancient times, but it was not until the
eighteenth century, at the start of the Industrial Revolution in Europe, that energy technologies were created that had
the capacity to consume non-stop an unlimited amount of coal for energy (such as the steam engine). As a result, the
extraction and use of fossil fuels expanded across all of Europe, changing the lives of the people who lived there. This
society-wide embrace of technology and use of fossil fuels for energy gave rise to what we call the modern world.
Unfortunately, by the mid-nineteenth century, the widespread use of coal and other fossil fuels created problems of air
and water pollution in Europe.
While Europe was initially producing this new fossil fuel technology during the
eighteenth century, the economy in the United States was still rooted in
organic, renewable energy sources. However, by the end of the nineteenth
century, the U.S. coal industry had grown into the worlds largest, fed from
coal mines built across the Appalachian Mountains, through the Midwestern
prairies, and into the Rocky Mountains.

Coal, shown here in it's native and processed

forms, is the first fossil fuel humans discovered
as a source of energy.

This development was an industrial

L. I, Nostrifikator [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0

triumph that positioned the U.S. as

or CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0], via

a world power for the first time in

history. It was also an

By U.S. Energy Information

Administration
(http://www.eia.gov/coal/review/html/fig1.cfm)
[Public domain], via Wikimedia
Commons

R. By Vladsinger (Own work) [GFDL or

CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia

environmental disaster. Within a

Commons

few years of building the largest

Source: L,

coal industry in the world, the

Coal Mining Regions in the United States in 2010.

Wikimedia Commons

United States had to face the same

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACoal_lump.
R.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACharcoal_B

environmental pollution problems

that had become commonplace in Europe.
In the early twentieth century,
many believed that water, air, and
1

human lungs could cleanse

Source:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AUS_coal_production_by_coalthemselves of fossil
producing_region%2C_2010.png

fuel

pollutants. However, in the

twenty-first century this mistaken

idea has completely vanished in the face of soil erosion, release of acid rain
and particulate matter, spread of greenhouse gases and toxic chemicals,
pollution of air and water, and warming of the atmosphere, all caused by
large-scale fossil fuel consumption.
In 2014, the amount of human deaths due to air pollution emitted by fossil

A 2013 photograph of Shanghai China in midday,

showing the air pollution emitted from Chinas
coal-fired power plants.

fuel use in China was estimated at 670,000. It is also estimated that in the

Photograph: Tom Yulsman. Used

United States approximately 20,000 people die prematurely each year due

with permission

to fossil fuel pollution. Furthermore, world estimates put the global rate of
mortalities directly caused by the burning of fossil fuels at 3.1 million people
per year.1

Source:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/imageo/2013/07/17/ai
pollution/#.VQC0_fnF9I4

Shifting from Non-renewable to Renewable Energy

Today, the principle challenge concerning energy is how to make the necessary shift from non-renewable to renewable
energy, a shift that is long overdue. As noted above, this challenge is not solely a matter of changing energy
technologies. It is also a matter of changing social systems and lifestyle habits. The dominant patterns of life, both
individual and institutional, that have existed for two hundred years in developed countries will need to change.
The shift to renewable energy will require national governments and international organizations to develop and enforce
new energy regulations. Businesses will need to make their valuation and use of energy transparent and add the
externality costs of environmental impact to their accounting method (called Triple Bottom Line Accounting; see
figure below). People (especially in developed countries) will need to discontinue habits of life that waste energy.

Triple Bottom Line Accounting (TBL) is a method of full cost accounting that expands
a businesss bottom line calculation of profit and loss beyond labor and material
expenses (economic costs) to costs of ensuring social fairness in business practices and
product impact (social costs) and impacts of business operations on natural resources
(environmental costs). Read more on the possibilities and difficulties of TBL accounting.
Triplebotline (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ATriple_Bottom_Line_graphic.jpg

Unfortunately, deeply-ingrained habits of life can be difficult to break. In developed countries today, fossil fuel
2

generators produce an enormous quantity of unsustainable energy at a relatively low market cost. In the transition
phase from unsustainable to sustainable energy, many people (especially in developed nations) will be called upon to
both reduce their energy consumption and pay more for the energy they use.
Furthermore, it is not only individual people who resist making lifestyle changes, but also political and economic
institutions, which typically favor stable routine over transformation. At all levels, change can be threatening and
difficult. It requires us to rethink our priorities, look at our fundamental values, and make serious decisions. In other
words, significant change in energy sources, use, and policy forces institutions and individuals to confront ethical
issues. The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace affirms in its document Energy, Justice and Peace (hereafter
EJP), Energy transformations are never ethically neutral activities.2
As we continue to consider the ethical issues raised by energy, lets keep in mind the question posed at the end of the
El Hierro case study from the beginning of this chapter:
What contribution do the moral principles, goals, and virtues of Healing Earth make to our ethical judgments about
acquiring, using, and distributing energy?

Language English

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