Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
same quality of life could be secured within a generation
(20-25 years) with consumption rates 10%-25% lower
than in 2005.
Finally, I note the absence of correlation between aver-
age energy use and economic performance on one hand
and feelings of personal and economic security, optimism
about the future, and general satisfaction with life on the
other. During the late 1990s average per capita energy
use in Germany (175 GJ) was only half the U.S. rate
(340 GJ), and in Thailand (40 GJ) one-eighth the U.S.
rate; the U.S. PPP-adjusted GDP was 34% above the
German mean and 5.2 times the Thai average (UNDP
2005). But 74% of Germans and Thais were satisfied
with their personal lives, compared to 72% of Americans
(Moore and Newport 1995). Such findings are not
surprising because personal assessments involve strong
individual emotions and perceptions that may be largely
unrelated to objective measures. Many studies have
shown little connection between subjective appraisals of
quality of life and personal satisfaction on one hand and
objective socioeconomic indicators on the other (Nader
and Beckerman 1978; Diener, Suh, and Oishi 1997;
Layard 2005; Bruni and Porta 2005).
Labor and leisure implications arising from higher rates
of energy use have been profound, proceeding in two
grand waves. Energy subsidies in farming reduced labor
requirements and released rural residents to cities. By
the year 2000 agriculture employed less than 5% of the
Western labor force, urban populations were dominant
in Latin America, and urbanization was accelerating
throughout Asia. Early urbanization was based on manu-
facturing that still required a large share of heavy exertion
and drudgery and extensive child labor; in 1900 at least
1.75 million U.S. children still labored in factories. Only
the second major labor shift, from industries to services,
resulted in a much lightened labor burden. Because
services generally have lower energy intensity than indus-
tries, economic growth proceeds with reduced environ-
mental impact.
Electricity has played the critical role in these transfor-
mations. Its unrivaled role is unforgettably illustrated
in Robert Caro's (1983) biography of Lyndon Johnson.
As Caro pointed out, it was not the shortage of energy
that made life in Texas Hill County so hard (households
had plenty of wood and kerosene) but the absence of
electricity. In an almost physically painful account Caro
describes the drudgery and danger of ironing with heavy
wedges of metal heated on wood stoves, pumping and
carrying of water, feed grinding, and sawing. This situa-
tion changed only when transmission lines reached the
county as electricity brought a near-miraculous libera-
tion. Millions of peasants in poor countries are still wait-
ing for such liberation. Women benefited most from
household electrification, but time allocation studies
show that reduced heavy labor was not accompanied by
significantly decreased total labor time or more leisure
hours (Minge-Klewana 1980). Because of the forgone la-
bor of children, women work more in modern house-
holds than they did in traditional families.
The automobile must also be singled out when look-
ing at energy-related time-saving and leisure activities,
because of its contradictory contribution and its inordin-
ately high social valuation. In Boulding's (1974) memo-
rable analogy, a car turns a driver into a knight riding a
mechanical steed, making it hard to go back to being a
peasant. This rapidly acquired dependence on cars led to
extensive spatial and social restructuring of modern soci-
ety. At the same time, it presented a formidable obstacle
