Campbell implies, oddly, that because both efficiency of energy use and energy consumption have increased over the past 125 years, energy efficiency causes increased consumption.
Firstly, there are many reasons for increased consumption: economic, military, political, the invention of new energy-eating whimwhams, etc.
Secondly, increased energy efficiency derives partly from increased knowhow, partly from political factors (such as OPEC) and partly from the certain knowledge that there will be various sorts of trouble if we don't get more from less. Without increased efficiency, the increase in fuel use would be vastly greater than it actually has been. Imagine the 1990s economy with the technology of 1870.
Thirdly, Campbell calls in evidence the 19th century economist Stanley Jevons. However, unlike physics, economics is not the same throughout time and space. Indeed, the alleged 'association' between increased efficiency and increased use reminds one of Jevons's assertion that there was an 'association' between ...
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