The Coal Question Revisited

Motivation & Relevance

Who and when originated those recurrent notions of “The Limits To Growth” (1972), “Peak Oil”, “Overpopulation” (1798) and the like? Something that piqued my curiosity. In my opinion, these are all fallacies or results of lazy analysis and some form of determinism.

Not surprisingly, if they are fallacious notions, then they consequently lead to wrong if not sometimes dangerous prescriptions.

The Coal Question

The book by this title is one of the best known publications by economist William Stanley Jevons (1835 – 1882).

In this book Jevons recognized the importance of energy in economic production. He raised the issue that since coal was a limited resource that sooner or later prosperity and progress would succumb to declining extraction of coal. He also contended that population growth could not continue in the face of increasing coal depletion.

Fallacies

In these cases, conclusions and forecasts are based on determinism and simplistic forecasts. Human ingenuity, the now famous unknowns and necessity is the mother of invention are omitted or overlooked.

Human Ingenuity – A little Understood Concept

Wikipedia, e.g. has a very unsatisfactory entry under human ingenuity as of 6/9/2013, which I find surprising. Even the world’s largest encyclopedia is no resource on this subject. Encyclopedia Britannica does not seem to have any entry on this subject.

Like inventions or innovations, humans are still rather clueless about scientific or technological progress.