How the World Really Works

Vaclav Smil – a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, and the author of Numbers Don’t Lie and Creating and Transforming the Twentieth Century – describes the history of energy and the saga of humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels.

Fire and Animate Energy

Fewer than two billion of Earth’s eight billion people are reaping the benefits of 20th- and 21st-century advances in medicine, nutrition, safety, and energy – advancements based, in many instances, on the use of fossil fuels.