I don't know why I couldn't reply to your comment 4 children down but oh well.

I don't understand how what you say is somehow a case for fossil fuel more so than a case for energy use. That is: why is the rise of a country's wealth metrics tied to fossil fuel? Wouldn't it be the same even if it were using say solar?

Also, I quickly browsed through your second link and I was very surprised about the figure 1.6 (which claims that there is less pollution as time goes by). I checked the source and although there isn't much context, it seems that what the EPA data is saying is that less pollutants are emitted year over year… that's a negative second order derivative of the amount of pollutant, not a negative first order derivative as the title seems to suggest (to me anyway).

It bothers me greatly that such a superficial analysis reveals bothersome details like this. I am inclined to believe that this source is not very good.

man, there is no argument about importance of industrial civilization and fossil fuels that brought us here. There is a reason why the term "weaning of fossil fuels" is used as the time of fossil fuels has passed, and now their usage only slows down the development of our civilization.

I also found these statistics helpful: http://www.pd.infn.it/~dorigo/autism_organic_foods.jpg