If everyone wants to eat like people in Bangladesh, then we would have food coming out of everybody’s ears. Vaclav Smil Read Quote
The great hope for a quick and sweeping transition to renewable energy is wishful thinking. Vaclav Smil Read Quote
U.S. industries from steel-making to plastics synthesis are among the world’s most energy-efficient; American agriculture is highly productive, as are America’s railroads. But for decades, Americans themselves have been living beyond their means, wasting energy in their houses and cars and amassing energy-intensive throwaway products on credit. Vaclav Smil Read Quote
Some countries that grow lots of pork, like Denmark and the Netherlands, are either eliminating antibiotics or reducing them. We have to do that. Otherwise we’ll create such antibiotic resistance, it will be just terrible. Vaclav Smil Read Quote
Most of the energy in North America is just consuming – Wal-Mart, shopping centres, government offices – or personal consumption: houses, cars, flying to Hawaii, gambling in Las Vegas. We could live affluent lifestyles with half as much energy. Vaclav Smil Read Quote
Exceptional circumstances can accelerate the gradual process of energy transitions: France’s decision to develop nuclear energy on a grand scale is perhaps the best example of how that can be done by government fiat. In contrast, America’s accelerated shift from coal has been driven by an inevitable embrace of cheaper natural gas. Vaclav Smil Read Quote
The history of energy use is a sequence of transitions to sources that are cheaper, cleaner, and more flexible. Vaclav Smil Read Quote
People shouldn’t be living in certain places – on earthquake faults or on flood plains. But they do, and there are consequences. Vaclav Smil Read Quote
