ENERGETIC CORRELATES - Energy in Nature and Society - page 346

the exergy or the emergy label) cannot be an adequate
surrogate for valuing space, time, qualitative attributes
of materials, biodiversity, mental labor, ideas, social or-
der, cultural riches, and morality. At the same time, it is
clear that money-based valuation cannot encompass most
of these qualities either, because it relegates them to the
realm of externalities, a grievous mistake when routinely
applied to the environment.

even > 150) were in African (mostly sub-Saharan) coun-
tries as well as in Afghanistan and Cambodia (UNDP
2005). Leaving the low Sri Lankan rate aside, acceptable
IM rates ( < 30) corresponded to annual per capita energy
use of at least 30-40 GJ. But fairly low IM rates ( < 20)
prevailed only in countries consuming at least 60 GJ per
capita, and the lowest rates ( < 10) were not found in any
country using less than about 110 GJ per capita (fig.
12.5). Increased energy use beyond this level is not asso-
ciated with any further declines of IM.
In every society, female life expectancy (LE) at birth
is on average 3-5 years longer than the male rate. The
lowest female LE ( < 45 years) is in Africa's poorest coun-
tries, the highest ( > 80 years) in Japan, Canada, and
nearly half of EU nations. Again, as in the case of IM,
the correlation with average per capita energy use ex-
plains less than half of the variance. Leaving Sri Lanka
aside, high female LE ( > 70 years) requires at least 45-
50 GJ per capita; the 75-year threshold is surpassed at
about 60 GJ; and averages above 80 years go with no
less than about 110 GJ per capita (fig. 12.5).
Average per capita availability of food energy is not a
particularly useful indicator. Food rationing can provide
adequate nutrition even in a poor nation, whereas exces-
sive food supply results in enormous food waste and a
higher incidence of obesity (Smil 2000b). National
means of food energy availability should thus be seen
only as indicators of relative abundance and variety of
food. Minima of adequate supply and variety are above
12 MJ/day, the rates corresponding to average per capita
consumption of 40-50 GJ (fig. 12.5). There is no bene-
fit in raising average daily food supply above 13 MJ per
capita.
Education and literacy data are not easy to interpret.
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12.3 Energy and the Quality of Life
Modern societies act as if economic growth and high
per capita energy use were the goals of an all-consuming
quest rather than a means of securing a high quality of
life, a concept that subsumes not only the satisfaction
of basic physical needs but also the development of
human intellect. Because quality of life is a multidimen-
sional concept embracing narrow personal well-being
(health, nutrition), wider environmental and social set-
ting (natural and human-caused risks), and the vast intel-
lectual aspect of human development (basic education,
individual freedoms), it cannot have a single revealing
indicator, but a surprisingly small number of variables
are its sensitive markers. Infant mortality (IM; deaths
per 1,000 live births) and life expectancy are perhaps the
two best (unambiguous) indicators of the physical quality
of life. Infant mortality is an excellent surrogate measure,
a highly sensitive reflection of the complex effects of nu-
trition, health care, and environmental exposures on the
most vulnerable group in any population, and life expec-
tancy subsumes long-term effects of these critical

variables.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century the lowest
IM rates were in the most affluent parts of the modern
world—in Japan (4), in Western Europe, North Amer-
ica, and Oceania (5-7)—and the highest rates ( > 100, ratios tell little about actual literacy or