Energy Consumption, Energy Distribution, and Clean Energy Use Together Affect Life Expectancy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The relationship between energy consumption and life expectancy is examined in-depth in this article, taking into account a number of variables like distribution inequities, economic growth, and environmental concerns.

A longitudinal analysis is made possible by the use of World Bank data covering the years 1971 to 2014, which sheds light on the evolution of the link between energy consumption and life expectancy over time.

The application of non-linear regression models and generalized or proportional hazards additive models (GAM) strengthens the analysis's statistical rigor and increases the validity of the results.

Interactive Graphics: The gapminder application's incorporation of visual aids like scatter plots and regression models enables a more natural comprehension of both global and temporal fluctuations.

The article provides clear conclusions, suggesting that beyond a certain threshold, additional energy consumption may not significantly contribute to increased life expectancy. The emphasis on cleaner energy sources and equitable wealth distribution adds practical implications.

Some weaknesses of the article are, limited differentiation, data limitations, threshold changes, sector-specific analysis. 

Author Response

We want to express our thanks to the very generous remarks of the reviewer!

Regarding the last point ("Some weaknesses of the article are, limited differentiation, data limitations, threshold changes, sector-specific analysis."): We agree with this assessment and will relate to these weaknesses in the discussion part. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. There is no need to write numbers such as 1, 2, 3, and 4 in the abstract.

2. The first letter of the keyword should be capitalized.

3. Suggest removing the shadow at the coordinates in Figure 1

4. References need to cite some new literature from the past five years

Author Response

Thank you for the valuable comments! We followed your suggestions 1-3. Regarding item 4 ("References need to cite some new literature from the past five years."): Only a smaller part (8 of our 27 references) of our literature dates to the years 2018 or older, but we now added two more references from 2021 and 2022 in our discussion.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper, entitled Energy consumption, energy distribution, and clean energy use together affect life expectancy, is a scholarly work and can increase knowledge on this domain. The authors provide an interesting and original study, the content is relevant to Sustainability.

I have some general and specific comments:

- The abstract and keywords are meaningful.

- The manuscript is quite well written and well related to existing literature.

- Why some parts of the text are underligned and in red?

- Please provide titles of axis for some figures (Fig. 2 to 5).

- Authors should discuss also their conclusion considering the development of renewable energies and reduction of fossile energies, considering targets of development of such energies or reduction of oil, GHG, ...

- The conclusions were supported by the current situation of the energy consumption and population, but there's no data for  to today. Why not considering the current period?

As it, this paper is not fully acceptable for publication and requires minor revision. I recommend the following decision: ACCEPT AFTER MINOR REVISION.

 

Author Response

thank you for your suggestions. Please see the attached document with our detailed responses!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf