How the World Really Works: A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future

by Vaclav Smil

we are a fossil-fueled civilization whose technical and scientific advances, quality of life, and prosperity rest on the combustion of huge quantities of fossil carbon,

An average inhabitant of the Earth nowadays has at their disposal nearly 700 times more useful energy than their ancestors had at the beginning of the 19th century.

Between 1800 and 2020, we reduced the labor needed to produce a kilogram of grain by more than 98 percent—and we reduced the share of the country’s population engaged in agriculture by the same large margin.