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Surprised to see Ireland in the top right
I'm sure this is true and is interesting. But it's also likely true for correlations like GDP-gasoline, GDP-chicken eggs, GDP-beer, GDP-pretty-much-anything. (I'd like to see the GDP-beer numbers tho!)
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This is important to understand. If you want to save energy, cut your industry production (see Germany).
GDP-beer. such an important metric is missing!
Thanks you guys...
How so? Genuine question.
We’ve one of highest GDPs in Europe (thanks mainly to foreign direct investment) and definitely high cost of energy
The ideal solution to climate change isn't reducing humanity's energy consumption, it's producing abundant, clean energy so that there's no need for pollution.
Obviously
But are they rich because they consume a lot of energy, or do they consume a lot of energy because they are rich?
one of my favorite examples of: "correlation is not causation"
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correlation is not causation
this 👆
THIS. It's incredible to see how many people out there are not educated to understand the difference between causal relationship and correlation. Statistics is not an opinion, as they say
yes, all the time
Correlation does not equal causation.
Spurious Correlations
Correlation is not causation: thousands of charts of real data showing actual correlations between ridiculous variables.
are you serious? shoe size is correlated with income, did you know?
I was about to my own comment to say that in this instance the correlation probably does mean something, but what we interpret from the chart can be ambiguous based on the assumed “causation”.
I think I agree with your above comment. Ability to harness (and consume) energy is a form of wealth.
I don't know what my point is supposed to be. This is very basic statistical knowledge and it's true like any other mathematical statement.
The causality is very likely inverted but everyone who posts this plot gets it the wrong way.
Higher energy consumption does not lead to wealth. Have you gotten richer by turning on your stove? That's implausible. It's the other way round. The wealthier you are, the more stoves you'll turn on.
> But even money is store energy.
ok I'm out
no
I see your point and you’re not wrong…but the electricity value is the easiest proxy for domestic energy production (OR proximity to energy production). If as a country you don’t have access to or produce electricity, you won’t develop industry, which elevates standard of living. Access to affordable, useable energy at scale relative to your population is critical…the countries in the bottom left don’t have that…the countries in the top right do.
Yes, we agree that energy production is key. All I'm saying is that there is no causal relationship that is apparent from this graph, not the correlation (which is very obvious!). The graph measures energy *consumption* and there are many examples you can construct to show that the causality doesn't hold.
I guess so… I mean, the chart literally has GDP on the independent axis so it’s really just the commentary that is the problem.
The follow on from the assertion that rich countries use more energy is fundamentally more important though… why do they? Because humans are likely happier/healthier when they have access to abundant energy. Rich nations tend to have that access and poor nations don’t.
I think people tend to think that, but then just want to equate being rich with being happy and so they explain the chart with inverted axes to oversimplify the interpretation.
> Because humans are likely happier/healthier when they have access to abundant energy
I also realize that this statement 100% needs qualification and it is likely not true that happiness is perfectly correlated with the amount of energy one has access to
two nations with the same energy consumption. one is more efficient than the other, and this it's wealthier than the other.
two nations, one four times more efficient but uses half of the energy consumption of the other country. that one is wealthier although it uses less energy.
qed
Or does a third factor affect both?
While I agree with your general point, this specific reasoning is also flawed. People don't randomly consume energy, they only consume it for whatever they believe is valuable. One of those things are machines that produce stuff they need.
If you've found a diamond on a hike there's not really much energy.
This chart is either misleading, or difficult to interpret. It seems the Y-axis scale is neither linear nor logarithmic scale?
And what determines the plot size - population? If so, then this looks outdated wrt India vs China pop.
Either way, if the data is somewhat recent and accurate… India being right at the margin of “energy rich per capita” is the biggest takeaway to me.
I guess same applies to the X-axis, both jump 1k, 2k, 5k, 10k… so I guess it’s at least consistently erratic 🤣
No way Pakistan is that close to India as India is borderline and about to break
Chart is logarithmic. Just not showing consistent tick spacing, which is a bit odd. Ticks between order of magnitude increases do appear to be equal - oddly labeled, but not really misleading.
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Electricity ≠ Energy
Some countries use a shiton of energy that is not electricity, sometimes because they don't have electricity, they just burn wood or coil for everything anf this has a much lower efficiency and much higher pollution per kWh consumed.
Usually electicity is the most efficient way to move thing/people and sometimes heat thing/space, then if the electricity is produced with a low polluting method, it's also the less polluting energy consumed.
Of course, not comsuming the energy in the first place is always less polluting but humains need energy to live and more to live more comfortably.
We could write books about optimizing our energy consuption and change our society to waste much less, work less (which consume a lot for often nothing really produced) while being more free. Bitcoin can be a first step but it will not solve everything.
Maybe not intentionally misleading, but it is easy to misinterpret. Poor quality data viz