Unsettling Science

The scientific method and hydrocarbon propensity The scientific method is perhaps humanity’s greatest achievement, laying the foundation for the industrial revolution which, for some, improved living standards to unimaginable levels. It led to the harnessing of fossil fuels providing far more energy than a single person ever had at their disposal before, increasing prosperity in the process. There are direct relationships between per capita CO2 output and standard of living indices such as child mortality/life expectancy, and available funds for environmental protection. Almost every social advancement has relied on electricity generated with the fossil fuels our profession helps to locate and, despite costly drives towards renewables, 87% of world energy in 2013 still came from hydrocarbons. For 150 years there have been claims that fossil fuels have peaked. William Jevons in the 1860s forecast that Britain would quickly run out of coal, leading him to conclude that the country’s ‘present happy progressive condition’ would be of limited duration. But largely thanks to geoscientists, we enjoy ongoing supplies enabling affluence to expand. Despite demonisation by environmentalists, civilisation will depend on hydrocarbons for most of our foreseeable power needs permitting us to continue escaping Malthusian limitations. Imagine a world where Jevons was right and we had run out of hydrocarbons during the reign of Queen Victoria. Would standards of living have gone on increasing and how would the environment have suffered?