There is no substitute for energy. The whole edifice of modern society is built upon it…. It is not “just another commodity” but the precondition of all commodities, a basic factor equal with air, water and earth. _{E. F. Schumacher (1973)}

Energy is vital in order to create and sustain economic and social development. Our whole economy reflects the relative costs of energy: the cars we drive, the houses we occupy, the kinds of factories we have and the equipment in them.

...If we lost all oil and gas products tomorrow, ...the world would simply collapse. There would be an immense depression beyond anything we saw in the 1930s -- the economy would go back to a primitive state. There would simply not be a functioning society. It would be as if there had been nuclear war, minus the casualties from blast and radiation... In a word, we cannot as a modern society or even a modestly industrial society live without oil and gas. That is, [it is not] a luxury or a narcotic. [It is] a basic necessity of life, as basic as almost any commodity there is.  Ben Stein