Energy consumption and the human condition

Abstract

The availability of energy and man's capability over the millennia to find and use it, did free him from physical toil. But this freedom and comfort did not make him happier. On the contrary, as the energy consumption per capita has increased, to the point reached in the so-called industrial world, he became lonely, insecure, more alienated with himself and his neighbors. It seems that energy consumption gave him a false feeling of independence from his fellow man. The paper will discuss the following hypothesis: “In view of an apparent degradation of the quality of life as the standard of living increases, even if we had all the energy per capita we wished, free of any monetary cost, and free from any damage to the environment, an upper limit seems to exist to this consumption, dictated purely by sociological and psychological considerations beyond which more energy consumption becomes detrimental to our inner well-being.”