Dr. Conca reports that growing inequality has become one of the major political and economic concerns in the world as well as in the U.S. The growing disparity of wealth today has many parallels with the unequal societies that emerged in the Middle Ages, where wealth and power resided primarily in the hands of a few feudal lords including kings, dukes and assorted noblemen. At the same time, energy issues, supplies and environmental effects have also been growing. It is easy to think that most things track evenly with wealth, the more money you have, the more of everything you can have, but that is not true for energy. In other words, wealth inequality is not the same as energy inequality. And that is the primary difference between economic inequality in present-day U.S. and Medieval Europe. Energy is essential for having what we consider a good life. Without abundant energy, we struggle just to survive. Growing or gathering your own food with your own hands is time-consuming, dangerous and dubious at best. This concept of access to energy versus quality of life is embodied the UN Human Development Index (HDI), which relates per person energy use to quality of life. Access to energy is the key to prosperity, education, health care, and long-life. Total energy in the world today, power plus transportation, is still mostly fossil fuel (28% coal, 31% oil and 23% natural gas), with about 8% hydroelectric, 5% nuclear and about 5% renewables, mainly biomass, although the relative amounts of each fossil source seem to change almost monthly. While wealth inequality may not have changed much since the Middle Ages, energy inequality has improved dramatically. Energy inequality is now only a factor of 10, or less, because energy has never been so cheap and plentiful in the history of humankind as it is today. And, for most of humanity, the quality of life that comes from so much energy is extraordinary.
Re-Directed URL: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/06/15/energy-inequality-trump-versus-the-common-man-or-medieval-lord-versus-peasant/#3ad7fccd6387
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