Numbers Don't Lie
Both in the United States and in the European Union, buildings account for about 40 percent of total primary energy consumption
Vaclav Smil • Numbers Don't Lie
Heating and air conditioning account for half of residential consumption, which is why the single best thing we could do for the energy budget is to keep the heat
Vaclav Smil • Numbers Don't Lie
by shifting the split to 40, 50, and 10 percent, we could (thanks to grain feed saved by reducing inefficient beef production) produce easily 30 percent more chicken meat and 20 percent more pork, while more than halving beef’s environmental burden—and still supplying at least 10 percent more meat.
Vaclav Smil • Numbers Don't Lie
Wild that something simple could work. But also wild that something as simple as changing our eating habits is so damn hard.
It would be a lot easier to expand our use of solar and wind energy if we had better ways to store the large quantities of electricity we’d need to cover gaps in the flow of that energy.
Vaclav Smil • Numbers Don't Lie
This nearly global shift has had enormous demographic, economic, and strategic implications. European importance has diminished (in 1900 the continent had about 18 percent of the world’s population; in 2020 it has only 9.5 percent) and Asia has ascended (60 percent of the world total in 2020), but regional high fertilities guarantee that nearly 75 ... See more
Vaclav Smil • Numbers Don't Lie
For every dollar invested in vaccination, $16 is expected to be saved in healthcare costs and the lost wages and lost productivity caused by illness and death.
Vaclav Smil • Numbers Don't Lie
These do not include generally higher life expectancy, but a lower risk of cardiovascular diseases, and also higher cognitive ability, higher lifetime earnings, and higher social status.